Linger
by Saavik13
Summary: The Doctor finds a way back to Rose. He has a promise to keep, only it’s the most difficult thing he’s had to do since his childhood. Yet, appearances can be deceiving if you don’t look closely enough. Reunion Fic. AU after Second Season.
1. Old Times

_Author's Notes:  
Please forgive my grammar and spelling. I'm American and despite years of writing Harry Potter fic, I'm afraid I'm still struggling with BritSpeak. This story is also un-betaed. If you'd like to volunteer, it would be much appreciated. This story is not really taking post Void/Rose/BadWolfBay cannon into account and is working on the assumption that what is taking place is years after the current goings on of the series._

"It's only impossible if I haven't found a way yet." That's what he kept telling himself. And between alien invasions of Earth, massive megalomaniacs bent on universal domination, and your run of the mill TARDIS related side-trips, he'd been working on it. When he'd said goodbye to Rose, he'd assumed it was going to take a while. He'd not wanted her to hope or expect, knowing he might not be able to deliver. He'd wanted her to get married, have a gaggle of children, and name them all John. Really, that was his intent. It hurt; it did. Was only fair though, that she do those things. Have that life since he couldn't give her the one she wanted.

He wasn't stupid or blind. Rose loved him. He'd known that long before her tearful confession on the beach. He'd known that when he promised her that she'd never be left behind. He'd sworn he'd do for her what he'd never been able to do. He'd watch her die.

He'd watched his mother die, saw what it did to his father, and he'd learned his lesson young. Don't get attached. Let them leave before you see them start to fail. That way, being a Time Lord and all, you know it's possible to go and find them, just as you remember them. As soon as you find them old or frail, you let them into your timeline like that. You can go back, oh you could. See them young again, talk to them. But you'll always know. You'll see the ghost of the older them hovering over their younger face, see the pain in the brighter, clearer eyes. And you'll hurt them because they won't understand why you're crying.

Rose was different. He now understood how his father must have felt. Rose deserved to have love for her entire life, short as it may be. She needed to be held and cherished from the day she was born till the day she breathed her last. It wasn't fair to Rose to expect her to hang around till the first crow's feet showed and then happily bounce away just to leave him an illusion. He'd promised her she wouldn't be another Sarah-Jane. With that promise he'd also given her his soul. He'd never understood his father. Now, that they were all gone, he finally understood.

Jack would have laughed. After all, they'd really never even had a proper kiss. The Doctor knew that didn't matter. Not to him and not to Rose. Kisses, sex, all that — it didn't matter. Oh, if they'd had more time it might have gotten to that. He was 900 years old, a grandfather at one point. It just wasn't a priority. And Rose, Rose enjoyed his company knowing that for once a bloke didn't need into her skirt to care for her, to love her. It was a unique experience for the young girl, sadly, and the Doctor was in no hurry to change that. He just wanted her company and she, she was happy with his. Until he couldn't give it, until the Void.

The worst of it was, he'd started to think that maybe, just maybe, one day, he and Rose might try something a little novel. He really had never tried domestic, after all. It was about time. The TARDIS liked children...

Then it had all gone to hell.

The Doctor sighed and imputed the last of the coordinates into the TARDIS and hesitated on the lever. He had no delusions. If Rose was still alive in the other Universe she'd be far too old for that now. Time moved differently over there, how differently he still wasn't certain. But without the use of the Time Vortex, he couldn't manipulate it. He'd land when he would land and that would be the end of it. It seemed as if the other universe was somehow tied to his own personal timeline. So, he could wager that if he was lucky, very lucky, it had only been 80 years for Rose too. She might be alive. Maybe.

He pulled the leaver. The TARDIS groaned and sparks flew and he lost consciousness for a time.

He smelled fire and dust and fried hair. It took him a moment to remember what he'd done, breached the universes again. He pulled himself up off the grating and cast a weary eye at the emergency lightening in the control room. The TARDIS hummed at him, reminding him he'd come for a reason, put her through this for a reason, and he'd best get on with it. They'd landed somewhere with a compatible power source, and she'd already started her auto-repair sequences. So Pete's World had developed new power sources. That at least was good.

The Doctor brushed the dust off himself and grabbed his screwdriver before throwing open the doors. The outside didn't look all that different. They'd landed in some kind of a park and for a moment the Doctor's hearts sank. It was a cemetery. He'd programmed the TARDIS to take him as close to Rose as possible and he'd landed in a cemetery. He cast a mournful look around at the headstones and felt a jolt of hope. They were old, far older than Rose's time. He raised his head and looked around, trying to spot where she might be. There was a row of houses to the left, all the generic suburban kind with little to no yard and all the same color. Rose would never live in one of those, that he knew. She'd joked too many times about them sucking the life out of people. To the right the cemetery stretched out almost forever it seemed. But directly ahead, there was a large building, looked like at least 12 or 15 stories. A hospital if the large symbol on the side was anything to go by. What kind of an idiot puts a hospital next to a cemetery?

He shrugged and started off to the hospital, his hearts beating a little faster. She'd be very old, if he'd guessed his timing right. It was possible she'd be inside. He briefly sent a plea to whatever gods might be listening, even the fake ones, that she'd still be aware. After all, humans from the 21st century didn't tend to be doing well when they reach more then a century of age.

In the end it was easy. He stopped at the information desk on the first floor and asked if there was a Rose Tyler in the hospital. The young lady behind the desk wordlessly typed the name into the computer and it gave out a mechanical sounding number and floor. The woman asked for identification and he flashed his psychic paper. He'd guessed that would be needed, Rose being a Tyler. The id should have read John Tyler. He's planned on saying he was a cousin or something. The girl drew a sharp breath and he held his.

"Sir, do..." The girl coughed. "Are you aware of her condition?"

The Doctor shook his head no and the girl's look of sympathy cut him to the quick. It must be bad. He didn't dwell on the fact her name hadn't changed. It might not mean anything. She could have kept it. She could still have had her gaggle of children and her London posh flat.

"Then it's a good thing you've come now." She didn't elaborate but the gentle squeeze to his arm left him in no doubt of what she meant. Rose didn't have long.

The Doctor hurried to the elevator and pressed the button for the 14 floor and the intensive care unit. Evidently they allowed visitors, for which he was grateful. He didn't waste time stopping at the shop for flowers. If the receptionist had been correct, it really wouldn't matter. He had a promise to keep.

The smell of death and antiseptic hit him when the doors opened. Room 212 was down the first hall on the left. A nurse was just coming out of the room when he stopped outside. "Is this Rose Tyler's room?"

The nurse gave a small, sad smile. "Yes. Are you a family member?"

The Doctor cringed; he didn't have it in him today to lie again. For some reason, it didn't feel right — rare but it did happen. "No, but can I still see her? Please?" His voice cracked and he didn't even try to hide it. "I'm an old friend. I promised her I'd come..."

The nurse smiled at him, again sadly. "I don't see why not. No one's been here for months. Her nephew's been too busy with the company. I'm glad..." The nurse glanced down the hallway. "I'm not supposed to give out a patient's condition, especially not Ms. Tyler's. " The Doctor nodded. The Tyler family would still have influence. "But she shouldn't be alone." The nurse waved him towards the door and he caught the whispered "no one should die alone" as she left for the nurses station down the hall. His hand trembled as he opened the door.

It smelled like a death room. He could tell that they tried to keep her clean, but it was long past the point where she had control. That was obvious. The number of tubes and wires sticking out of her tiny shriveled frame were evidence of that. A feeding tube. A caterer. A ventilator. The nurse had said it had been months since anyone had visited. How long had she been like this?

Her eyes were closed. A small trickle of moister was dried on the left side of her mouth. The Doctor stifled a sound of anguish as he looked at her. She was so old. Even her hair was gone and the way her lips curled, she'd obviously lost her teeth as well. He called up her chart on the terminal set into the wall. Cancer. Some form they weren't even able to identify. Torchwood. They had it narrowed down to some form of radiation contamination she'd been exposed to years before. She was the last of her team left alive. The others had all died within ten years of the exposure. Rose had battled the cancer on and off for fifty years.

The Doctor keyed the terminal off. He couldn't imagine what she'd gone through. According to the chart, the only thing keeping her alive was the machines. She'd lost the ability to walk nearly 30 years ago now. The cancer had eaten into her spine. She'd stayed active even after that, traveling, consulting for Torchwood. It had only been in the last five years she'd had to give that up. She'd never officially retired, but they didn't call anymore. The Doctor was certain of that. Humans, they saw a weak body they assumed a weak mind. This was Rose. She'd fought this long...

He pulled a chair up to her bedside and gently took her hand. The cart said she'd been completely paralyzed for over year, she wouldn't even feel it. No movement below her neck. Thanks to the tech of the time, they'd managed to slow the cancer enough that she was still mentally aware. He wasn't sure that was good thing. Rose. Trapped in a useless body for over a year.

"Doctor?" The voice was pained and raspy, fighting the breathing machine for enough air to speak.

The Doctor started. She hadn't even opened her eyes. "Rose?" Her lids fluttered open and she tried to smile.

"Knew you'd come." She took a deep breath. "Promised, you did."

He nodded. "Rose, I tried..." She blinked at him; it was all the further she could move.

"I know." She closed her eyes and the heart monitor showed her pulse jump as a wave of pain washed over her. "I had a..." she took another breath. "A fantastic life..." breath "for you." She opened her eyes and the Doctor turned her head a bit so she could look at him straight on instead out of the corner of her eye.

"Rose," His voice did break and he realized he was crying.

She blinked again. "Will you..." _breath_ "Do me one last favor?" _breath_ "Doctor?"

"Anything." He meant it. Whatever she wanted.

"I don't..." _breath_ "want to die here." She met his eye, the same look of hard determination there that he'd seen a hundred times before, only this time there was no way out. "Please, I want..." _breath_. "I want to die at home."

The Doctor's own breath was shaky. "Tell me where it is, Rose. Somehow, I'll get you there."

She tried to laugh, but the machine wouldn't let her and she ended up making a sickening choking sound. "Home's not here." _Breath_ "Home's the TARDIS."

It hurt. Home was the TARDIS? Her home? After all this time? "Oh Rose!" He was hugging her, against the bed, his head resting beneath her chin and he was sobbing.

"I wish..." _breath_. "I could hold you..." _breath_ "one last time," _breath_ "My Doctor." He didn't look at her, he couldn't. "I know, " _breath_ "to much to ask." _breath_ "...to travel one last time."

"NO!" He almost shouted it and squeezed her tighter, ignoring the wires and tubes. "Nothin's too much." He drew a shaky breath. "For you Rose Tyler, anythin's possible." He stayed, half laying on her listening to her weakened heart beat against his ear until a small sound from the door snapped him upright. Rose's eyes were closed and she was asleep again. He turned to look at the doorway. The nurse from earlier was standing there. In her hands, a picture frame taken from the shelf at the foot of the bed.

"You're the Doctor." The nurse looked him over carefully. She put the picture frame back on the shelf and the Doctor realized is was a photo of him, snapped from Rose's old phone. The print was of bad quality and looked its age. It was the only photo in the room, positioned so Rose, even in her current state, could see it. "She use to tell such stories." The nurse came further into the room and started to adjust the equipment, straightening the mess he'd made of it. "She asked me to make sure you were able to get in when you came." The nurse eyed him critically. "I never thought you would." She gave a small laugh. "Torchwood. You think they'd at least pay her some attention. She worked for 'em for over 70 years." She ran a hand gently over the top of Rose's bald head. "They all abandoned her in the end."

The Doctor sat back down in his chair and didn't' try to hide his sorrow. "I wanted her to be happy."

The nurse nodded. "She was. In her own way." The nurse pulled up another chair on the other side of the bed and sat down. "I've seen her kind, your kind, Doctor. This hospital gets a lot of Torchwood cases. Seen too much, the lot of you." She patted a wrinkle down on the bed cover and frowned. "Give their lives to the cause. Somehow, they survive all the battles and the wars and the intrigues. In the end, they can't survive themselves."

The Doctor looked up sharply and the nurse waved off his glare. "She saved us I don't know how many times. Pulled some fancy stuff, from what I hear if the rumors are true. Some say she even spent a year living off planet to set up the treaty we have with...well I can't pronounce it." The nurse leaned back and crossed her arms. "Still, she had nobody to talk to. Nobody with enough security clearance or enough knowledge to relate. I see it all the time, Doctor."

"She told you things."

The nurse shook her head no and gave a snort. "I know about you. She said you'd come back for her someday, if only to say goodbye. She said you'd probably look just like your picture up there, even after all this time. Something about travel and stars and some kind of a war. That's all. Everything else, well, only when the medication was strong enough to make her delusional. She told me once you might have a difference face too. I though she'd finally gone mad." The Doctor smiled half heartedly and the nurse chuckled quietly before straightening in her seat and looking serious. "Well, if you meant it, we'd best get a move on. The real doctor'll be making his rounds soon."

The Doctor gave the woman a confused look and she rolled her eyes. "I have no real idea what or where this TARDIS is, but if Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, wants to die there, than I suggest we honor that." The nurse gave a pointed look to the vital signs on the monitor. The Time Lord was running out of time.

He was numb as the nurse, he still didn't know her name, found battery backups for all the machines. Most of it they won't take. She wouldn't be needing it anyway. The TARDIS, once there, could take over all of it. The nurse made up some excuse and cleared the hall. They got Rose down in the staff elevator and out a service entrance. Alarms started when they were half way across the entrance drive. Rose Tyler may have been neglected by visitors, but the hospital had no desire to answer to Torchwood and the Tyler family if they allowed her to be kidnapped. The Doctor practically ran, pushing the gurney she was on, slowing only when they hit the grass in the cemetery. Rose's eyes flew open as soon as the sirens started. A true grin spread across her face and the Doctor felt an answering smile on his own.

"Just like old times." He grabbed her hand again, pushing the gurney one handed as the nurse struggled to keep it aimed. They got to TARDIS just as the police started to swarm around them. He noticed a soft glow coming from Rose and he realized she still had her TARDIS key on a necklace. He smiled down at her and spared a moment to pull the catch open and free the key. It was only right that Rose should open the door. Between them, the nurse and the Doctor got her inside and the doors closed just as their pursuers got within reach.

The TARDIS hummed loudly and Rose gave another grin. "Hello..."_breath_ "old..." _breath_ "girl." The nurse and the Doctor shared a look and he led the way quickly to the med bay. It took only moments to have his fears confirmed. Even he couldn't do anything now. He transferred her over to one of the beds and the TARDIS took over life support from the inefficient, stupid human machines. She was slipping away. He couldn't stop it, couldn't fix it. She was too far gone already.

The nurse didn't say anything. She patted his shoulder and walked back to the control room, pulling the gurney loaded down with the now useless machines. He felt through the TARDIS her departure and he spared a hope that the people outside wouldn't shot her. She could always claim mind control. If she'd stayed put he would have offered her a ride...she'd taken care of Rose. That had to be worth something. As it was, he didn't have the time to find her.

He gently brushed a hand down Rose's cheek. She'd fallen back asleep. The picture of him was laying next her and he noticed for the first time a small black album on her other side. The nurse must have put it there. He opened it up, ignoring the banging on the outside of the ship. Each picture was labeled and he realized he was looking at Rose's brother's life. His childhood, his wedding, his children. And his funeral by the looks of it. Rose was scattered throughout the album, always off to the side. Watching. Smiling. But separate. Jackie and Pete, Mickey and Jake. He watched them all disappear from the small book, knowing that each absence meant another loss.

He left her side just long enough to take the TARDIS into the air, off of Earth. There was no Vortex here to travel in, but he had enough power to get them home. He set the coordinates, pushed the lever and this time the transition was smooth. The TARDIS was almost powerless when they landed in their Universe, but she trilled at him, urging him to ignore her, to take care of Rose. He put them into the Vortex. Given a choice, a dieing Time Lord, on their last regeneration, would always choose to leave this life inside the Vortex. Rose wasn't one of his kind, at least not biologically. But she was the most...is the most...he was crying again.

He made it back to the med bay just as she was coming around. He could tell by her breathing it would be the last time. Even with the advanced machines she couldn't draw enough air to speak. He leaned down and kissed her gently and a tear ran down her face, sliding of his cheek before it hit hers. Another joined it and trailed down to her pillow. He stared into her eyes until she gently lost consciousness again. When that happened, he did the only thing he could. He crawled into the bed next to her and pulled her close before silently telling the TARDIS to power off the support. She was home.

It didn't take long. One minute, 36 seconds. She was gone. No last shuddering breath. Without the machines, she didn't have the strength. Just...silence. And then he couldn't feel her heart, her tiny fragile, lonely human heart just simply didn't beat again.

He didn't know the TARDIS could cry. That was what she was doing. He could feel it, hear it in his mind. His beautiful ship was singing a song to Rose, to him, and it was ... crying. His own tears silently joined hers and he wept. He'd kept his promise. "Rose." He mumbled her name as pulled her close. His Rose.


	2. Ginger

The air was different. The smell of cleaners and body fluids was gone. The metallic hint of air purifiers and the ever present bit of antiseptic was missing. Rose took a deep breath and realized that the machine was also gone. She wiggled her toes. It took her a moment before she realized it. She'd wiggled her toes! She sat bolt upright in bed and stared around her widely. She'd wiggled...she was sitting up! 

Then it hit her. Her room, she was in her room in the TARDIS. The soft hum of the ship was all around her. The hint of alien worlds lingered in the air. Heaven was the TARDIS? She knew she'd been dying. She could remember staring up into the Doctor's eyes, wanting to tell him...things. So many things, but not having the strength. Seeing his tears and wanting, needing to tell him it was alright, it was time. She'd died. She knew...

There was a soft laugh to her right and she whirled around to stare at the doorway where said Doctor was leaning, hands in his pockets and his hair ruffled. "Doctor?" Her voice sounded funny and she raised a hand to throat. What was wrong? Why...her skin was smooth and soft. She looked down, her hands were different. The fingers were straight and not bent at funny angles. The skin was pink and healthy, not the drawn wrinkled yellow it had been the last time she'd been able to hold them up in front of her.

The Doctor smiled at her and moved into the room, sitting on the bed. He reached a hand out and fingered her hair. Wait, she had hair? Out of the corner of her eye she saw the strands fall through his fingers.

"Ginger. Rose Tyler, on your first time out you manage ginger." He smirked at her and winked. "Really, you must tell me how you managed it."

She just looked him. What was going on? His hand dropped from her hair and picked up her hand and squeezed it. "Welcome back, Rose."

"What..." her voice startled her again. It wasn't her voice. "What's going on?" For a moment she feared he'd done something horrible. Turned her into a Cassandra or something. The fear must have shown in her eyes because he shook his head quickly and squeezed her hand again.

"I don't know, Rose." He smiled a large, frantic grin. "See, I haven't quite figured it out yet. Somehow, somehow you've regenerated."

Regenerated? She blinked at him in confusion and then looked back down at her hands. They were different, not just younger. Her fingers were longer and there were tiny freckles on the backs. Not ages spots, real freckles. She made a small sound in the back of her throat; something close to panic and it took her a moment to realize the Doctor had pulled her into a hug, his face buried in her ginger hair.

"It'll be okay, Rose. I promise. First time's always the worst. New teeth and all. Takes some getting use to."

Why she hadn't noticed the teeth was beyond her. She clutched at him, trying to wrap her mind around it. "How?" She finally managed to croak out and the Doctor pulled away to look her in the eye, all joking gone from his expression.

"You died, Rose. In my arms, in the med bay." He dropped his gaze and there were tears in his eyes again. "I didn't know this would happen." He looked back up at her and tried to smile. "You started to glow and..." He did smile. "You regenerated. I couldn't believe it. But you did." He picked her hand up and laid it on her chest and she squeaked. Two heart beats. "Somehow, you've changed."

"I don't understand." She was clutching his arms again, almost shaking him. "How did you do this?"

He looked sad for a moment before breaking her hold and standing up to pace, running a hand through his hair. "That's just it. I didn't do anything. I..." He looked sharply back at her. "It was you, Rose. It has to be something to do with you and the Vortex."

The shipped hummed loudly and Rose knew, just knew. "No." She whispered. "It was the TARDIS." He looked at her sharply and she threw off the covers and stood up, wobbling a bit and he moved to steady her. "I looked into the heart of the TARDIS and she looked into me." He nodded. "I...I think she gave me what I wanted most. Just like she did for Margaret." 

The Doctor frowned slightly. "It's possible."

She wasn't listening anymore and was making her way to mirror. She stared at herself for a long moment before tentatively reaching a hand up to her face, running her fingers over the arched eyebrows, down the much larger and sharper nose. She looked about 35 or so, with rather thin lips and a long neck, dark eyes. Gangly if she was honest.

The Doctor came up behind her. "Weird, isn't." She nodded at his reflection and ran her tongue over her teeth. At least they were straight. He chuckled softly. "I remember my first time. Ended up with the worst hair and this horrible breath."

She laughed and then stopped abruptly. She was almost his height now. It felt strange. The Doctor took her by the shoulders again and led her back to the bed, sitting down with her on the edge. "Look, I don't have a lot of information for you."

She nodded and pulled her legs up until she was sitting cross legged on the bed and facing him. "Alright then. What do you know?" Her tone was all business and she could feel herself slipping back into Torchwood mode.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair again, still looking straight ahead and not at her. "I know you died from some sort of cancer caused by radiation. I know you outlived everyone else that was exposed to it by decades. Has to be a connection." He paused to throw her a look and she nodded for him to continue. "I know that you regenerated. It looked like the process was pretty much standard, well standard for me." She reached a hand out to take his. "I know..." his voice wavered a small bit. "I know that whatever's happened your DNA is no longer human."

She sucked in a deep breath at that. "So, what am I now, then?"

He did turn to look at her, taking both her hands in his. "Gallifreyan." He looked deep into her eyes. "I think you might be right. The TARDIS, she may have..." He looked back down at their entwined hands. "She may have set up some sort of delayed reaction. Planed for your death and programmed you to...change." He swallowed and hung his head. "For me."

Rose pulled one hand free and used it to tilt his head back up so she could look him in the eye. "For me too you silly git." He smiled shyly and she hugged him this time, holding him close like she'd wanted so desperately to do on her death bed. "Have you asked her?"

"It doesn't work like that. I don't, can't communicate with her in words. It's always...vague." He sighed and brushed her hair away from his mouth. "I get the impression she's quite pleased with herself." The ship hummed louder for a second. "Okay, very pleased with herself." Rose chuckled. "I just wish I'd had some warning."

"You wish? I'm the one that woke up ginger!" 

He downright giggled and suddenly she was being swung up into the air and twirled around. "Rose Tyler, how would you feel about another adventure with your old friend the Doctor?"

She eyed him carefully as he set her back down. "What..." she smirked as he pulled her even closer "did you have in mind?"


	3. Lessons in Regeneration

What did he have in mind? The Doctor frowned and held her at arms length, looking her over with intensity that made Rose a little uncomfortable if her slight shiver was any indication.

"Well," the Doctor pulled on his ear a bit and tilted his head. "I think that's going to be up to you, new Rose Tyler." He let her go fully and walked a complete circle around her. "New you, after all. Don't know this you yet, neither of us. You could want a quiet life."

Rose snorted. "Doubt that." She backed away and leaned against the far wall, crossing her arms. "Seems to me I don't feel that different." She frowned. "Only you don't know the old me anymore either. I mean, I lived 83 years without you, Doctor. That'll change a person." She lowered her eyes and stared at him from under her lashes. "I was pretty innocent when you said goodbye on the beach. Lot's happened to change that."

The Doctor mirrored her position and leaned against the door frame. "True. So I guess we need to get re-acquainted." He smiled, the same charming smile that oozed 'trust me' and Rose couldn't help but return the grin. "Same old Rose underneath I'll wager." He stood up straight. "Alright, first date with new Doctor was New New York. Where should we go with New Rose?" He didn't wait for an answer but walked to her closet and opened the door, frowning at the contents. "How about New Philadelphia, skie's purple there. Or what about New New Caledonia?" His voice became a little muffled as he delved deeper into the closet. "Ah! I think we'll have to do something about this first, however." He pulled out a crumpled huddie.

Rose covered her mouth and giggled. "Haven't worn one of those in…well long enough I don't want to go back to it."

The Doctor nodded and dropped the item like it was contaminated. "Quite right. Wouldn't fit anyway. Wardrobe room with you and I'll go find a nice shopping spot. Any preferences?"

Rose raised a single eyebrow and snorted. "Like what we want will matter. The TARDIS is going to land us where she feels like." The ship didn't bother to answer in any fashion the Doctor could discern which probably meant Rose was right.

The Doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets. "While you were out I parked us on the Rift in Cardiff for some fuel. We could just shop here, if it's not to close for comfort."

"What's the year?" Rose fumbled in a drawer and came up triumphantly with a hair brush and growled in frustration as it hit a knot. "Forgot how much work hair is." She looked down at her legs and frowned. "Damn, have to shave again too won't I?"

The Doctor laughed and rolled his eyes. "2010 and it makes no difference to me. Humans. So vain." Rose snorted and the Doctor stopped laughing. "You snort quite a lot." She glared at him and he smiled. "Well, you do now." She snorted again and he smirked. "One change found then, not too hard to deal with this one." He chuckled a bit. "Oh, and don't worry about the shaving bit. Gallifreyan, remember? No body hair, at least not places most humans care about."

He turned quickly and left the room before she could respond. He could hear her yelling after him, asking if he was joking, but he didn't stop to answer. She'd figure it out eventually. Humans and Gallifreyans look alike, but they were never the same species after all. There'd be a few surprises for Rose along the way and he was going to enjoy every second of it. Companions, Rose in particular, always did forget he was alien and what that might mean. Be nice to have one find that out first hand.

The Doctor didn't head for the consol room, instead he made for his biology laboratory. The room was set-up with desks all along the walls and wheeled chair in the middle. It was small, he could reach each desk by sliding the chair around just a bit. It kept all his workspace just in reach.

He hadn't told Rose the whole truth about her change. Oh, he was sure she was correct, the TARDIS did have something to do with this, but the ship couldn't have altered her genetic code. The TARDIS could control time – not DNA. It had turned Margret into her younger self. Rose, well Rose was anything other than human now. The TARDIS alone couldn't do that.

He picked up the vial of blood he'd drawn while Rose was unconscious. He'd run every test he could think of on it. It was normal, except that it came from Rose. If he'd pulled the sample from Romana, he wouldn't have been concerned at all. As it was, whatever had changed Rose could still be affecting her. What if she changed again? He opened the vial and took another small bit out to re-run another test.

He was so caught up in his work he didn't hear Rose come in till she tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around and his glasses almost fell off the tip of his nose. She smirked at him and backed up so she could twirl around for his inspection.

"What do you think?" She'd found a plain brown dress some where in the wardrobe room. It was simple with buttons down the front and a tie at the waist with three quarter length sleeves. It came down to her mid calf and had a rather full skirt. It reminded him of something from the 1960's, housewife style. But it suited her new body, made her look less harsh and the treating. He'd feared she'd show up in a suit or something and look like she'd walked out of the CIA or UNIT. She looked a little nervous and kept brushing her hair back behind her ear. "I know, it's different." She looked down at her feet. "Thing is, I haven't had useful legs in so long, I rather want to see them."

The Doctor nodded and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "I can understand that. Might not work when we do the running for our lives bit, but for around here I think it'll do quite well." He didn't mention that his mother had worn one like it the entire time he was little. That was just weird. Plus, he'd never quite explained his whole past to Rose and now really wasn't the time.

"So, what are you up to?" Rose brushed past him and picked up the vial of blood, eyeing it critically. "Trying to sort me out?"

The Doctor nodded and grabbed the vial back. "Attempting to, yes."

"What have you gotten figured out so far?" She hopped up onto the counter and started swinging her feet. The Doctor sat down in his chair and twirled it in a circle before grabbing a stack of papers he'd scribbled his notes on.

He waved the papers dramatically in the air. "Well, you haven't contracted any of the viruses that I know of that could alter DNA. I thought maybe you might have always been part Gallifreyan, maybe one of my people had been a little…friendly with a human at some point and managed to hide it. But I checked a sample of blood I had from," He frowned, "…before you went to Pete's world and it was run of the mill human."

Rose cocked her head to the side. "Is that what this is about? I thought the TARDIS did it."

The Doctor took a deep breath and gave a quick explanation. "The TARDIS can affect time, not DNA. I'm sure she did something, yes, but I can't see how she changed you from human to Gallifreyan. Other things could, like a Chameleon Arch, but it only works on Gallifreyans. Since we know you were born human, saw you as a baby, that's not likely."

"Okay, didn't really follow all of that, but Chameleon Arch is out, whatever the hell that is. What else?" Rose eyed the papers in his hand. "How long was I out that you had the time to run all those tests?"

"About three days. Normal for regeneration." He shrugged. "That's why I was so sick when you saw me regenerate. You're supposed to sleep for several days, restart the systems, let …." He trailed off, an idea starting to form in his mind. "To let the residual energy slip out." He eyed her carefully. "Rose, that radiation your team was exposed to, tell me about it."

She shrugged. "Not much to tell really. It was about 30 years after we said goodbye. I was heading my own team at Torchwood. Reports started filtering in that there was strange meteorite activity happening at the research station we built with the Raxacoricofallapatorians." The Doctor's jaw dropped and Rose smirked. "Different universe, Doctor. The Raxacoricofallapatorians made first contact with Earth peacefully and we ended up setting up a cooperative technology and science exchange. Seemed that while they had space flight, they really weren't that much more advanced than Torchwood." She shrugged. "It worked out really well for both of us. Turns out Earth's pretty good at making use of outside tech. They'd bring us some new gadget and we'd figure out how to make it do what it did better or come up with another use for it they hadn't thought of. Eventually we started developing our own." She absentmindedly rubbed her throat. "That ventilator I was on was developed at the station. If I'd been on one of the old ones, I wouldn't have been able to talk at all."

"Logical." The Doctor scribbled down a few notes in his cryptic script before nodding at her to go on.

"Anyway, I was on friendly terms with the Raxacoricofallapatorians, lived on their homeworld for two years while we built the station. So, they sent me and my team to investigate. Whatever was going on, we didn't want it to create a diplomatic incident." Rose's eyes grew distant as she thought back to what had happened. "We got there a little after station mid-night. The place was nearly deserted; everyone had gotten out of there when the meteorite shower started. Only thing was, there shouldn't have been any meteorite activity. We built the station in middle of dead space, nothing around for light-years. Top Secret too."

"Nothing stays Top Secret, Rose. So who was attacking it?"

Rose shook her head. "No one. It was debris. Never did figure out from what. My guess is wasn't from that universe. I found a rift outside the station in space. The debris was falling through the rift, or at least that was always my theory. It took a bit of doing, but we managed to close it up." Rose smiled sadly. "I held off doing it. I thought maybe there was way I could get back here." She shrugged. "Eventually I had to give up. We'd been there a month and the station was taking a periodic pounding from whatever it was. We had to close it."

"Did you analyze the debris?"

Rose grinned. "Of course! It was the weirdest stuff. Took us six months to isolate the different parts. Looked like it was from two separate sources. Figured a space battle or something. There were two distinct materials with lots of variations to both. I thought it might be from some kind of major confrontation and this was debris from several ships on both sides. The rift could have been produced by whatever was going on that destroyed the ships."

"What about the radiation?"

Rose's look turned dark. "We didn't detect that until my team started to get sick, and then we only assumed it was radiation. We were never able to actually pick it up on any scanner. Like I said, we'd been analyzing the stuff for months. Luckily, I'd insisted we stay on the station under quarantine till we figured it out. If we'd brought it back to Earth or Raxacoricofallapatoris like both governments wanted we'd have potentially killed thousands." Rose clinched her fists. "As it was, Jacob was the first to show signs. He started to forget things then he couldn't get enough sleep, was always tired. Turned out to be a brain tumor. He was lucky, in the end. He died pretty quick."

Rose didn't have to say it. She hadn't had that luxury. She'd lived far longer then she should have, even healthy. The Doctor hung his head. He could imagine living for son long and being so ill. He'd have killed himself just to regenerate and get it over with. "I'm sorry."

Rose smiled at him. "It's alright. Wouldn't change a moment of it, not really. I did a lot of good, even if I couldn't run for my life." She shook herself slightly. "Anyway, after Jacob got sick they all started to go, one after the other. I took the longest to start showing symptoms. By the time we figured out it was radiation from the debris causing the cancers, it was too late. We spaced what we had collected and the Raxacoricofallapatorians sent a ship to drag it out. They dumped it into a black hole. There wasn't much we could do treatment wise on the station. By the time they got us back to earth, I'd developed a tumor on my spinal column. That's what caused the initial paralysis. I managed to survive the removal of that tumor, but they couldn't repair the nerves. The rest of the team wasn't as lucky. They all developed them in inoperable places, or got multiple tumors." She smiled. "I'd go years before a new one would pop up. It wasn't until a year or so before you came back that it got really bad and went into the lymph system." She shrugged. "As soon as that happened, it was like my body just shut down. Course I was well over a hundred at that point. Bound to happen despite all the fancy tech they tested out on me every chance they could get."

The Doctor hummed a moment. "Rose, do you know exactly where the station was?"

She frowned. "No clue. It was half way between the two planets, I know that. I never did get very good with space geography or things. I was more the people person, coordination type. I left the technical stuff to the people that could handle it." She shrugged. "I learned pretty early on at Torchwood that not everybody's good at everything." She smirked. "Me, I'm a people person. Rare thing at Torchwood. I did most of the treaty work we needed. For 80 years, I was Earth's main spokesperson."

The Doctor's grin spread from ear to ear. "Rose, I couldn't think of a better person for it." He patted her knee. "Right, so this station was in the middle of no where, half way between Earth and Raxacoricofallapatorias?"

"Yeap."

The Doctor tugged on his ear. "Not much there now. Course, that was where…." The Doctor went pale.

"Doctor?" When he didn't answer, Rose hopped off the desk and knelt down beside his chair. "Doctor, what is it?" He looked at her and she could see the pain in his eyes, so much like the last Doctor her throat tightened. "Oh my, God. It's not where…"

"Gallifrey." He whispered the word. "That's where Gallifrey use to be." He closed his eyes for a moment. "When it happened, when I pushed the button I must have caused a rift." He took her hand. "That debris…"

"It was from the Dalek fleet and Gallifrey." Rose finished for him, tears in her eyes. "Oh, Doctor. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to make you go and remember it."

He shook his head. "No, it makes since!" He jumped up, almost knocking her over. "The main difference between Gallifreyans and Humans is the ability to control time. The planet was composed of a material with the potential to give off Huon energy. That's what's in the heart of the TARDIS, what made the Vortex. It was in the very ground of Gallifrey." He grabbed a slide and smeared some of the old blood sample on it. "I didn't even think to look for that on your pre-regeneration blood. No reason for to it'd be there." He took his glasses off to stare down into the rather antiquated looking microscope. "Course, it shouldn't be there now, either and I should have thought about that earlier. You've never set foot on Gallifrey."

"What?" Rose stood back up and leaned against the desk next to him. "What are you going on about?"

"Time, Rose, Time!" He looked up from the scope, grinning. "Time Lords weren't just any old Gallifreyan. We were trained to control and manipulate the Time Vortex, with the help of a TARDIS. But we don't have to have a ship to do little things, like slow down or speed up time in our immediate vicinity, not if we were born on Gallifrey. There was a mineral in the planet, that when absorbed due to prolonged exposure, allows that to happen. It's what the TARDIS is composed of. It's what we used to create Huon particles and forge the Time Vortex and start organized time travel, it's what gives off the artron energy that shows you're a time traveler." He threw her key back at her, still on it's chain. "And it's what makes the key glow when it gets near the TARDIS."

"You're going all Spocky on me, Doctor."

He grinned even larger. "Rose, you've got that particle in your blood stream." She glared at him and the Doctor cleared his throat and settled into lecture mode. "Think about it like this. Humans have a certain amount of iron in their blood. 's normal. Supposed to be there. Without it, they get sick. But too much is also bad, deadly." Rose nodded. "Gallifrey had another element that acted sort of like that and the only planet that seems to have it was Gallifrey. We called it artron. It's in our blood stream, just like your iron. Thing is, it's not necessary to life. It's extra. Leaches into the bloodstream of every living thing on the planet. Eventually, we figured out how to purify artron and used it like your iron, to build things. Artron's not inert, however. It gives off artron energy, like uranium gives off radiation only artron energy's not dangerous, not normally. In large quantities, very large quantities, artron can be turned in huon particles through something similar to nuclear fission." He poked her in the chest. "You, dear girl, have an abundance of artron in your blood stream."

Rose brushed his finger off. "So what does this have to do with my DNA?"

The Doctor sat back down in his chair and twirled it, arms out to the side. "Nothing!" He grinned again. "That's the point!"

"DOCTOR!" She grabbed onto the handles of the chair, leaning over it and glaring at him, nose to nose. "Explain, now, in a way I can understand."

"Right." He frowned at her. "You know, you're bossier in the body." She glared harder and he cleared his throat. "Thing is, there's only a teeny tiny difference genetically between humans and Gallifreyans. That's what gives us two hearts and all that. Otherwise, we're basically the same. Everything that you think of that's so alien about me, the time manipulation, the regeneration, the incredible intellect and memory…" He trialed off as she upped the glare to near lethal levels. He slowly backed the chair away from her. "All of those things are because of the artron in our blood stream. Thing is, you shouldn't have that, regardless of the change in DNA."

"Because I was never on Gallifrey to absorb it and the artron that's in the TARDIS is in metal form, giving off energy but not able to be absorbed in particle form."

"Exactly." He beamed at her. "Right in one. The artron that's in the TARDIS is fused into a metal. Now if she's damaged and you inhale burning TARDIS or something, that would allow some artron into your system, but not enough to account for the levels I'm finding."

Rose leaned back against the desk and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, chewing on it thought. "So, if that debris was from the destruction of Gallifrey, than it would have been covered in artron dust."

The Doctor sobered. "Yes. You and your team would have inhaled it, absorbed it through your skin, it would have gotten into your food. You have an incredibly high level of it in your blood, higher than I have or any Gallifreyan I've heard of actually, even some of my people that lived thousands of years on Gallifrey wouldn't have had levels this high. In fact, I'm wager the levels were high enough to be lethal for a normal human, probably what caused the cancers in you and your team."

"So this artron's responsible for my regeneration?"

The Doctor nodded. "In a manner of speaking. Artron's what huon comes from, like I said earlier." He shook his finger at her in mock recrimination. "Huon is responsible for regeneration. Artron, when it's exposed to large amounts of energy, like Gallifrey exploding becomes huon. Huon forces regeneration, altering the body's DNA in the process, returning it to a more healthy state. Now why you ended up Gallifreyan and not Human, I don't know. Technically, it's possible to end up as about anything during regeneration. I wasn't joking when I said I could have had two heads or no head. It's a dodgy business. It's rare to switch species, but I've heard of it in legends and myths. I guess you prove they aren't just myth."

Rose chewed harder on her lip. "So where did the energy come from to activate the artron and force regeneration?"

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stand straight up. "That's where the TARDIS comes in. A TARDIS normally provides a little energy bust to a Time Lord about to regenerate. She did the same for you, gave you a little push."

Rose frowned. "So is that why I regenerated and not my team?" She frowned. "So I would have died without the TARDIS?"

The Doctor waved towards the blood sample. "Not entirely unlikely, but not a certainty. It's possible for me to regenerate without the TARDIS because I have just a small smidgen of huon in me from birth – not really worth mentioning most of the time and I've been traveling in time enough to pick up quite a bit of artron energy which helps with the conversion. You already had a small amount of huon in your blood stream along with artron energies; you might have regenerated without her help. I imagine the dash you have is from the Vortex. I took the vortex out of you, but it left a signature behind. That combined with the artron energy you had from traveling with me was enough to catalyze formation of more and regeneration." The Doctor frowned himself. "I don't think you'll have the full set of 12 like I do. The catch is, artron has half-life of about 2000 years. After that, it starts to degrade rapidly. Each regeneration uses up a significant amount of the artron that's floating around in your bloodstream. Since there's no more Gallifrey, and a large amount of what was left is now in Pete's World and down a black hole, there won't be a way to absorb more. Unless you're really sloppy, I doubt you'll go through the full set before the artron, and thus the huon, run out."

"Does that mean you won't be able to regenerate again?" She shook her head. "You haven't exactly been anywhere to absorb more artron."

The Doctor nodded. "Luckily, I have enough stored up to last me for a while. You can only absorb so much artron at one time safely anyway, as you found out the hard way. The majority of that I carry I was born with. That's why I only have 12 regenerations, 9 of which I've used. The 3 regenerations I have left should go off smoothly, as long as I use them up in the next 2000 years."

Rose snorted. "Thought you don't age. What's to say if you're careful you will use them up?"

The Doctor stood up and bounced slightly in place. "Rose, remember who you're talking to. I'm surprised I've lasted the last 80 so years in this body. I'm averaging less than a century in each, 10th body 980 years old…" He grinned. "Besides, doesn't matter. Can't change it, won't worry about it."

Rose eyed him carefully. "Doctor, you are something else. Not sure what else, but it's something."

He grinned manically and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Now that we've got the big mystery all sorted out, what say we go shopping?" He waved a blank credit card under her nose. "I've got plastic and I'm not afraid to use it!"


	4. Getting to Know You

Rose stood on the edge of a great cliff, other wise known as the TARDIS doorway – hand poised to fling the doors open. The Doctor was hovering behind her, all bouncing energy and impatient whining. He was like a seven year-old on a sugar high. She ignored him. The world was out there. Earth. Just as she left it, or pretty close. It'd only been a few years for this Cardiff since she'd last walked its streets. It had been a lifetime for her.

Pete's world had never been bad. She'd made a name for herself. She'd had friends. She'd led a good life. Here, here she'd just been a shop girl and the latest in a long string of the Doctor's companions. The last time she'd been in Pete's Cardiff, she'd been helping with the opening dedication for a new University devoted to the study and development of advance space flight and its ramifications. She'd sat in her chair on the platform next to her good friend Garth from Raxacoricofallapatoris and waited for her turn at the microphone. They'd been the guests of honor. There'd even been a Chair dedicated in her name to study alien cultures. All that was on the other side now. Here, here she wasn't even Rose Tyler, shop girl. Here, she didn't even have a name she could use, just a death certificate.

The Doctor was bouncing harder and she was going to have to move or he'd knock her over accidently in his pogo-stick giddiness. Some things never did change. She was being uncharitable, she reminded herself. The Doctor hadn't done this, hadn't brought her back. It wasn't fair to blame him.

She yanked her hand back. That was a revelation. She was upset. She was upset because she was alive. She'd been ready, more than ready to die, to get on with the next adventure. Now she had another 2000 years to wait! Unless she ran into something that didn't allow regeneration, which if she stayed with the Doctor was a distinct possibility.

She jumped when the Doctor's hand settled on her shoulder. "Rose," His voice was quiet and not far from her right ear. "We don't have to go out there. I can move the TARDIS. How about we go shopping in the 1960's? You're dressed for it. Or maybe sometime in the Future, at a colony world."

Rose shook her head no and took a deep fortifying breath. "I've got to go out there sometime. Might as well be now." She didn't look at him, just threw open the doors and stepped out into the bright sunlight, blinking as it blinded her. She heard him lock the doors, felt him take her arm and then they were off. He was pulling her down one street then the next. He asked her if she'd been to Cardiff in Pete's world, what it looked like. When she'd been, never stopping for the complete answer before firing off another question. He rattled off question after question at his rapid fire pace and eventually Rose realized what he was doing. He was distracting her. The Energizer bunny routine was a hoax. The Doctor was watching every reaction she made, analyzing her, making sure she was okay and keeping her mind moving so she didn't have time to think about any one thing to long. She could have kissed him.

They breezed through shops, the Doctor piling her arms down with random clothes and shoving her into dressing room after dressing room. She'd come out, he'd frown and fuss and she'd giggle. By noon they were both loaded down with bags and it was so much like old times Rose almost forgot they'd been apart. But then she'd look at him, and realize she was taller now or she'd catch a glimpse of her ginger hair out of the corner of her eye and she'd stop laughing, suddenly. Doctor never acknowledged it verbally; he'd just go on babbling at her. His eyes, however, showed he understood. He was probably the only one left in the universe who could.

They stopped for lunch at a little chip shop off a back road and she ordered her usual. The Doctor watched her carefully and she couldn't figure out why till she took the first bite. It was like an explosion of taste, a wave of sensations and impressions so strong it was like nothing she'd ever felt. She almost fell out of her chair.

The Doctor took her hand and with a serious expression passed her a glass of water. "Thought that might happen."

"What was that!" She gulped the water down, and almost gagged at the after taste it left in her mouth. Even the water was...

"Humans don't have nearly as many taste buds as we do, Rose. You haven't eaten since you regenerated. I imagine it will take some getting use to." He smiled slowly and rubbed her hand with his thumb. "I promise, it does have advantages." His grin was a little cheeky, if Rose did say so herself. 

She could feel her eyes bulging out of her head. "How can you stand it?"

He smirked. "Quite like fish and chips, myself. You've just got to concentrate a bit." He let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair. "You always used to pick on me for taking food so seriously, but if you concentrate on the flavors it stops you from getting the sensory overload you just experienced." He picked up a chip and ate it, a look of intensity crossing his face for a moment. "It's an acquired skill." His voice sounded a little husky to Rose and she narrowed her eyes. "Try it." He smirked.

Rose eyed the plate of food like it just might spring to life and bite her before she could return the favor. Carefully, she picked up a piece of fish, brought it up to eye level and glared at it. "Any trick to this other than to concentrate?" The Doctor shook his head no and Rose glared harder at the fish before closing her eyes and carefully placing it in her mouth. The explosion happened again, if anything stronger, but this time she was prepared and she tried to narrow her focus onto one element and suddenly she could taste the fish and the salt and the flour of the breading. Each ingredient was there, separated in her mind and cataloged in the instant that she tasted it. She opened her eyes and looked at the Doctor. "I think I know why you have that oral obsession."

The Doctor grinned and popped another chip into his mouth, closing his eyes in obvious pleasure. He chewed slowly and swallowed. "Yes, it is rather decadent." He opened his eyes and gave an almost shy smile. "My people, they didn't think it was wise to indulge like this. Gruel. That's what they ate most of the time. This bland, grey mush that had all the nutrients in it the body needed and nearly no taste." He gave a wistful head shake. "Just imagine, they all had the capacity to experience food like this and they chose to deny themselves."

Rose tried a chip next and the potato and oil swirled through her mind and she suppressed a particularly violent shiver of pleasure, snapping her eyes open. She let out a tiny little moan despite her best efforts. "Doctor," She took a steadying breath. "Maybe they were afraid of embarrassing themselves in the middle of the restaurant!"

The Doctor just laughed all the harder. "Wait till you taste something with sugar. Rose, you haven't lived till you've had marmalade like this! It's sinful. Oh, and chocolate, we must get you some chocolate." He gave a manic grin. "Every food has a different effect, causes a different reaction physically and emotionally."

Rose eyed him carefully; he was mad. The fact that she was squirming in her chair and vaguely turned on by eating nothing more than fish and chips didn't bode well for her and chocolate. She'd end up wreathing on the floor. The knowing grin on the Doctor's face told her all she needed to know. Kinky bastard had been getting off on food the entire time she'd known him! She eyed him carefully and deliberately took another bite of her food, keeping her eyes on him the entire time. His eyebrows shot up but he didn't turn away, instead a slow smile spread across his face and she let her tongue slide out just a bit, to grab the last of the fry oil off her lips. The Doctor turned a violent shade of red and dipped his head. She chuckled. "You started it, Doctor."

He didn't look up, just mumbled. "So I did."

-

They ate the rest of lunch in an awkward silence, both of them trying to pretend the other one wasn't having a similar reaction. Rose could admit, if only privately, it was funny. No wonder his people stuck to their grey mush! She couldn't imagine going through a family dinner like this! It was...weird to think that every meal she'd ever shared with the Doctor, he was, well 'enjoying' himself. Of course, she had to admit the effect did start to become less pronounced as she ate. She mentioned it, quietly, and the Doctor nodded. He said the first time for each food was always the most intense. He'd actually looked a little sympathetic, towards the end. He was a cruel man, Rose decided, to do that to her. Of course, it made since that he would. All the times she'd drug him to some place, made him try something new. It must have been torture! No wonder his 9th self had refused all her mothers dinner invitations as 'domestic'. The 10th doctor was definitely a little on the kinky side and Rose made a mental note to be a bit more mindful of his habits from now on. She wasn't sure how she'd missed it before, but it was more than obvious now.

The Doctor had looked sheepish and a little contrite as he paid the bill and Rose came to conclusion he hadn't meant anything by it. He was just happy to be sharing something with her, something he probably never thought he'd get to share with anyone ever again, not since the War. How many others from his world had he taken out for dinner? And why did that suddenly sound so...well, loaded? Rose shook her head and resolved not to be bothered by it. She was over a hundred years old. A little openness with her friend about this subject was normal. After all, how many times had she and her girlfriends eaten chocolate and watched a movie just for a glimpse of some man's rear end? She wasn't a prude. She shook herself once and took up her packages and left the restaurant, the Doctor right beside her.

They swung by the TARDIS just long enough to drop off the morning's load of shopping. The Doctor wanted to go take a look at some exhibit in the history museum and Rose rolled her eyes. He'd only complain that they had it all wrong, but he begged so nicely, all big eyes and dopey expression that she agreed to go along, on the condition they stop by a few stores on the way back. She wasn't about to go though her "first time" with every one of her favorite foods in public, it would be dangerous and more than a little embarrassing. He gave her a knowing grin and suggested they stop by a bakery and a chocolate shop and he'd give her some alone time later that evening. She smacked him and he had the audacity to laugh. So it was back to the flirting only then. She could live with that. Been a while since a bloke flirted with her after all, something like a few decades. Besides, it was the Doctor. All they'd ever done was flirt and there wasn't any reason to expect that to change now, no matter how much she might secretly wish it would.

"So, what was it like?" The Doctor asked her an hour into their museum adventure.

Rose stopped reading the placard in front of the textile remnant she was examining and frowned. "What, lunch? Haven't you already had your laugh at my expense?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes at her and leaned against the display case making the guard on duty cough and glare at them until they moved on to the next room.

"No, I meant what was it like, the last 80 years? What did you do?" He eyed her carefully, taking her arm and guiding her over to bench in a little side alcove. "We haven't actually had a chance to talk much other than business."

Rose leaned back and let her head rest against the wall behind her. "It was a lifetime, Doctor. How can I just distill it down for you? I mean, what was it like for you?"

He tugged on his ear. "Point," He conceded, but his look said he still wanted to know.

Rose gave a weary sigh. "Well, you know I worked for Torchwood and what I did for them. You know I spent a lot of time off world." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and chewed a moment on her bottom lip. "I hated to be in one place. Guess I got use to traveling." She tilted her head against the wall to look at him. "I never did settle down till the end. After Garth died, well, I sort of lost my motivation."

The Doctor smiled widely and leaned in as if to ask a secret. "So, who was this Garth, then?" His voice sounded so much like one of her old girl friends wanting gossip she couldn't help but laugh.

"Garth was my best-friend. He was a Raxacoricofallapatorian." The Doctor looked a little shocked and Rose shrugged it off. "We met when I went to his homeworld as part of the culture exchange we made after signing our first treaty, while we were building the station. He was supposed to be my guard." Rose chuckled. "First night there, we get attacked by this militant group of Raxacoricofallapatorians that were determined to over through the government and set up a military state. Turns out they were lead by our old friend Margaret's family." Rose shook her head. "Anyway, good old Garth ended up injured and I'm standing in the middle of the street fighting the whole lot of them off with just my purse and some fast talking pretending my makeup case was a weapon." She giggled. "Learned that from you."

The Doctor nudged her arm and grinned ear to ear. "So, what happened?"

Rose smirked. "I got them talking long enough the city patrol showed up. They started shooting, the other group started shooting, and I started dragging Garth out of the way. He kept telling me to go, leave him behind and of course I didn't listen. Never have." She nudged the Doctor back. "Anyway, I get us into this alley and we're hiding behind these trash cans for hours. Whole cities in the middle of riots and there's a whole revolution trying to happen but not having any real success thank God. Eventually I couldn't wait anymore. Garth's getting weaker by the second. So, I stood up, marched into the middle of the street and demanded they all stop behaving like idiots and remember they were civilized people."

The Doctor's jaw dropped. "Don't tell me that worked. It never works."

Rose smirked. "Oh it worked, for about three seconds. They started shooting at me again, both sides this time, and I end up back in the alley behind the trash cans this time with my leg hurting like hell and a nice singed arm to add to it. Garth and I stayed huddled together back there the entire night and most of the next day before things settled down and the insurgents were arrested. I was pretty messed up by the time the emergency crews got to us, but Garth was worse. Of course, they didn't know a damn thing about human anatomy so they had to work off record tapes. I was in the hospital for two weeks before they managed to get a doctor from Earth in. Nearly died of an infection."

The Doctor didn't look too happy but Rose just patted his knee. "Anyway, Garth was so shocked at what I'd done for him, he pledged himself to my side in a life debt. I tried to convince him it wasn't necessary."

"Wouldn't work. Life debt's a serious business. Nearly every species has some form of it." The Doctor pulled his legs up onto the bench so he was sitting sideways. "Did Garth follow you back to Earth then?"

Rose nodded. "Moved in with me too and got a job at Torchwood as my assistant. Caused a bit of a stir at first." Rose chuckled. "You should have heard the rumors!" She covered her mouth to try and stifle the snort. "At first he was insulted, he thought they were disgracing us by assuming there was more to our relationship than a life debt and the start of friendship." Rose turned so she was copying the Doctor, both of them sideways on the bench. "Eventually he calmed down once I explained that most humans were obsessed with sex and they didn't mean anything by it. Of course, it got annoying with everyone asking us how that worked out, sometimes the questions were more than a little embarrassing."

The Doctor smirked. "Raxacoricofallapatorians and humans, not a very easy combination to imagine mating."

"No, no it wasn't." Rose smiled softly. "We finally got so tired of everyone asking Garth drew up computer simulations. We ran every conceivable position through that thing and the next time a new staffer worked up the courage to ask after a meeting at Torchwood, he and I marched over to computer, plugged the program in and proved in 3D animation exactly why that wasn't really an option."

The Doctor barked out a loud laugh. "I'd have loved to have seen the looks on their faces."

"Oh, we handled it very scientifically." Rose drew herself up and put her features into a blank expression and pointed at the window as if it was a computer screen. "As you can see, the human female in this position would likely be crushed by the male Raxacoricofallapatorian. The angle necessary to bring both sets of sexual organs into the proper alignment would require the amputation of all four limbs on the female and a 1.5 foot extension to the male organ..." She broke down into giggles. "It was priceless really. Course, we both got written up for it."

The Doctor shook his head, still smiling. "So, you two really were just friends?"

"Hey, not you too!" Rose smacked his arm. "Yes! Can't a girl be just friends with a bloke?" She asked the question carefully and watched the Doctor. He stiffened just a little than gave a causal shrug.

"Depends on the bloke, but I guess it's possible." He eyed her carefully back. "Why'd it stay friendship, other than the obvious physical incompatibly?"

Rose shrugged. "Not interested. I mean, we both loved each other, as friends. They started calling us Han and Chewy at work. Garth was really funny and had a way with people, once they got use to seeing a giant alien that looked like he belonged in a horror film walking down their street. He loved Halloween in the States. He made it a point to drag me over there every year we were on Earth."

Rose sighed. "He wasn't with me on the station. He'd meet a girl and gotten married years before, when we were on his world for a training seminar, and I'd convinced him it was okay to go home and stay with his grandkids for a few weeks while I was analyzing the debris. Saved his life. The other Raxacoricofallapatorians that were exposed died just like the humans." Rose grimaced. "He blamed himself. Took me a month to convince him not to off himself for failing in his life debt. I finally had to scream at him that I was alive, but if he killed himself I'd follow after him just so I could beat the crap out of him in person."

The Doctor nodded solemnly. "What happened to him then?"

Rose stood up and crossed her arms, staring at the wall. "Died of old age. I was by his side along with his kids and grandkids. I moved to his planet the last year he was alive, lived with his family. They formally adopted me into their House." She frowned. "I'm going to miss them. They were the only family I had after mum and Pete died. My brother, well, he didn't really want a lot to do with me, his kids even less. I was too much older, I think. He always resented my job at Torchwood, my connection to mum. My name was always in the papers for something. He hated that."

Rose ran her fingers through her hair, wincing when they caught on a knot. "I loved that planet, you know. It was the only real "alien" place I could go and I missed traveling to places outside Earth so much. Garth took me everywhere, showed me stuff no outsider should have seen. It was fascinating. The culture was so different yet I could relate somehow." Rose shrugged and sat back down, touching the Doctor and he turned so she could rest her head on his shoulder. "I wanted to die there, you know, with my family. Torchwood wouldn't authorize it."

"We can go there, you know."

Rose snorted. "Why? Not the same here. No Garth. No House of Melock, or if there is I'm not a part of it here. What would be the point? I mean, there's no treaty or cultural exchange so I'd be an oddity." Rose sighed. "Maybe someday, I'd like to go and sit in the caves at the south pole and watch the lights of the harvest festival again. I promised Garth I'd go for him and leave an offering in his memory. I couldn't do it every year, but I went back when I could."

"When did he pass?" The Doctor put his arm around Rose and held her close, resting his head on hers.

"It was, oh, must be 15 years ago now. He was so young when we met, barely out of school." Rose turned a bit and hugged the Doctor. "It's weird to outlive everyone, especially when they tell you it's only a matter of time. And the months go by, then the years. Finally you just stop thinking about it. I was ready." Rose looked up at him. "I'm actually a little disappointed, you know?"

The Doctor gripped her tighter. "Why?" He frowned.

"Because I was ready. I'd done everything I wanted to do that I could do, in life. I'd saved my planet, made friends, made enemies, finished the last crossword in my book." Rose shrugged. "I'd made peace and now I'm alive. I'm alive and I'm starting to make more plans, more things to do before I die. What if I don't get to wrap them all up nice and neatly again? I mean, the only thing I wanted to do that I hadn't was see you again and then you showed up. I was pretty much content, Doctor." She frowned. "Don't expect I'll get that opportunity again."

The Doctor looked pained. "Doubt it." He ran a hand through her hair. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Of course." Rose reached a hand up and tapped him on the nose. "I'm Rose Tyler. I'm always alright. Another thing I learned from you." She smiled softly and took his free hand in hers. "I can't stay mad at the universe for being alive. It's not a bad thing, it's just...I'm not sure what to do with myself."

The Doctor bounced up, almost causing Rose to spill on the floor before he tugged her up to his side. "Well, then we had best find something to do with you, hadn't we?"


	5. Back in the Saddle

The Doctor couldn't believe he'd done that. To be honest, he really couldn't believe he'd done most of things he'd done in the last 24 hours, or make that the last week. He'd found Rose, watched her die, watched her regenerate, found out she was no long human, that he was no longer the only one of his people – thanks to Rose, he'd quite clearly propositioned said former companion and only by accident, and now he was lying on his face, hog tied, presumably in a the belly of an alien ship for which he still didn't know the owners of.

The saving grace to all this was that Rose was seemingly oblivious to what he'd done. She did seem to be a little suspicious of his motives at the restaurant, but she'd quickly returned to her normal joking self. The Doctor was going to have to run some tests on his psychological health when they got back to the TARDIS. He was obviously loosing his mind to have allowed that to happen with the food. Of course, he hadn't really known if Rose would be affected the same way he was and there was no good way to start that conversation had he been sure. 'Hello, Rose. By the way, now that you've got two hearts, food's likely to get a little kinky. And I'm also starting to think maybe we should do a little Adam and Eveing, only I'm not going to admit that even to myself and what the hell am I saying?'

That settled it. He was going to find the largest book on Gallifreyan biology he had, make the TARDIS translate it, and leave it where she'd find it. He was done with watching her find out the hard way. It was only funny in the abstract. It was damn embarrassing in practice and potentially dangerous to their friendship. What if she wanted to know other things, female things? He wasn't exactly an authority on that subject, after all, and she had a right to know. And he wasn't about to start answering questions on other topics, Jack like topics. Not in his present frame of mind, and Rose was going to ask eventually – probably teasingly too, falling back on old harmless flirting habits. Knowing her, she'd ask if he'd 'danced' lately and would she need lessons now with a new body and all. This was ridiculous! She was Rose. Same old Rose, and he was acting like a horny teenager all of a sudden and this was starting to turn into a fantasy rather quickly.

He banged his head against the floor. Now really wasn't the time for him to be worrying about this. He'd been lying in this position for at least a few hours, no idea how he got here. The last thing he remembered was twirling Rose around in the alcove at the museum. Next thing he knew, he had a splitting headache and was trussed up like a Christmas goose. Rose was not in the room; he'd managed to squirm around in a circle to be sure of that. In fact, nothing was in the room. Empty white walls, floors, and no door he could discern. Probably a transmat beam then or something like it.

At least he still had his sonic screwdriver. He could feel it in his pocket, only he wasn't going to be able to reach it anytime soon. Whatever they'd used to tie him up was strong and it was starting to cut into his wrists. His fingers were getting cold, which wasn't good. He closed his eyes and tried to feel where he was. His Time Sense wasn't going to do him any good since he couldn't see much of his own timeline, but if he could catch a snatch of something or someone else's, he might be able to figure out where he was or at least who had managed to capture him.

It took a while, especially with the headache that was starting to form behind his eyes, but he finally managed to catch a snippet of a timeline from someone on the ship. They weren't humans, as he suspected, but Pratorlusions. Pretty far from home, if the Doctor remembered correctly. Question was, what did they want with him? He'd never been to Pratorlusia. As far as he knew, the Time War had missed their section of space by light-years. What could have caused them to travel all this way to capture him? Unless it was random, which knowing his luck was a distinct possibility.

He squirmed a little and managed to fall over onto his right side, the screwdriver making an uncomfortable lump under his hip. This wasn't working. Now his ear was itching. He hated being tied up. What was the point anyway? He wasn't going anywhere if there wasn't even a door.

Now his nose had started itching too. Great. He arched his neck and tried to scratch his nose on the floor, without much success. Great, just bloody great. He gave a futile tug to his bonds and bit his lip as they dug into his wrist and ankles, the pressure not letting up even when he stopped struggling. Wonderful. Fantastic.

His headache suddenly got a 1000 times worse and he groaned out loud, shutting his eyes and trying to forgot he was alive.

"Doctor!"

His eyes flew open despite his pain and he frantically wiggled around, trying to find the voice.

"Doctor!"

"ROSE!" He screamed, a little startled at how frightened he sounded. The room echoed his plea back at him, but there was no answer. He stopped struggling and then he heard it again.

"Doctor, where are you?"

It wasn't in the room. He blinked away tears as the pain in his head amplified yet again. It wasn't in the room; it was in his head. The blank spot where the other Time Lords use to be wasn't so blank all of a sudden. He could feel her there, slightly desperate and worried, calling to him with everything she had. Rose shouldn't have known how to do it. It also shouldn't hurt. He squeezed his eyes shut and realized the problem instantly. His mental muscles, so to speak, had atrophied without the Time Lord's faint presence to keep them moving. He'd never actually used his connection to them like this, never a reason to before since it normally took a group of Time Lords working together to send a message. He hadn't even thought to test and see if Rose was now connected to him like this. They'd have to investigate later.

He tried to forget the pain, taking deep breaths and falling into his own mind. There were only two faint strands of connection left in the void where his people should be – the TARDIS and now Rose. He sought out her strand and its bright golden glow was blinding to his mental eye. The strand from the TARDIS was wrapped around it, amplifying Rose's now 'natural' connection to him, allowing her mental voice to reach him.

"Rose?" He wasn't sure how this was working. It shouldn't be working. Suddenly, he felt her relief flood over him.

"Doctor?"

"Rose, what are you doing?" He could have sworn he'd just been on the receiving end of a mental hug.

"Sorry." Rose's mental voice sounded a little embarrassed. "We weren't sure this would work. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine for the moment, except you're giving me a terrible headache." The Doctor mentally frowned, projecting his confusion and discomfort across the link. "Who exactly is the other part of we?" He felt Rose wince.

"The TARDIS. You disappeared, in the museum. Just poof, gone. I ran back to the TARDIS and when I got inside she was going crazy, the console was lit up like a Christmas tree and there was a bell going off. As soon as I shut the door she was in my head. I just knew you were in trouble and the TARDIS sort of…" Rose's 'voice' trailed off for a moment. "Not sure what she did. She kind of gave me the impression that if I let her in a bit more, we might be able to reach you together. No words, just a vague sensation." Rose again paused. "I feel sort of funny, like she's channeling energy through me or something."

The Doctor's hearts thumped. "Rose, tell me you didn't look into the heart again."

"No!" Rose's empathic answer was loud enough the Doctor nearly whimpered. "I'm no where near the console. I'm sitting in the corner, actually. Stop worrying about me. We've got bigger problems. Where are you?"

The Doctor relayed what little information he had, the name of his captor's species.

"They haven't even interrogated you?" Rose sounded a little peeved.

"No, and I'd rather like to keep it that way for the moment. This is taxing enough." The Doctor squirmed a bit and sighed as the screwdriver dug further into his hip. "Can you get up or is this taking to much of your concentration?"

"I think I can walk." His connection to Rose wavered a bit as he felt her stand up but it held. "Okay, where to?"

"Go to the console. Can you try and project what you're seeing to me?" Rose didn't answer but suddenly he got a clear view of the inside of the console room. It was disconcerting and the Doctor had to remind himself that the hands he saw in front of him weren't his and that in fact his eyes were still closed. "Good." He sounded a little pained to his own mental ears. He couldn't keep this up for much longer. "Rose, do you trust me?"

"Yes." She hesitated and he could hear her sighing. "You want to control me, don't you." It wasn't a question.

The Doctor tried to send her a wave of reassurance. "Yes. I can walk you through what I need you to do, but it would take to long. I'm running out of energy, Rose. This is taking far more out of me than it appears to be you."

"The TARDIS is feeding me energy somehow." Rose's hands gripped the console and he could see strands of ginger falling in front of her eyes. "Alright. What do I have to do to let you?"

The Doctor didn't respond 'verbally'. He mustered what strength he had and moved his mental self down the strand connecting them and into Rose's body, leaving his own physical self lying on the floor. He didn't have much time, even with the energy the TARDIS was feeding Rose they both would be to taxed for this to go on long. He sent her body flying around the console, somewhat awkwardly, slamming buttons down and twirling dials, pinpointing his location and setting coordinates. The TARDIS groaned but finally the rotator started moving just as he lost his grip on Rose and slipped into his own body and back into unconsciousness.

When he came to, there was a loud ringing in his ears and he was being drug, fast, across the floor on his left side. He opened his eyes to find energy weapon bolts zinging past his face. From the feel of it, one or two had hit him. He groaned as his shoulder hit something raised and with a sudden jerk he flew backwards and he heard a muffled thump from behind him. He was in the TARDIS. He could see a group of Pratorlusions, all scaly and chartreuse, advancing towards them, weapons drawn. Without warning, the TARDIS doors slammed shut and he was left blinking at the panels as the ship was hit repeatedly with energy bolts from his frustrated former captors.

The Doctor groaned as his injuries made themselves apparent, but he never the less managed to squirm and twist around to check on Rose. She was sprawled on the floor behind him, dress up over her head and a pair of cut off jeans showing clearly where he'd expected knickers to be. The effort of heaving him over the TARDIS threshold had caused Rose to loose her balance and fall, rather ungracefully by the looks of it.

Rose made a huffing sound and tossed her dress down. "Right. Rescue part done." She glared at him and scrambled to her feet, wobbling a bit. "Where's the screwdriver?" She bent down and started fumbling in his coat pocket.

"Trouser pocket, same side." He tried to help her maneuver him a bit but he realized suddenly that all his injuries where on his right side around where she was fumbling for the screwdriver and he nearly blanked out from the pain. She finally got to the sonic screwdriver after pulling out about a dozen other objects, each one receiving a rather colorful curse as she tossed them over her shoulder.

"Doctor, we need to talk about what you keep in your pockets. Setting for cutting through these cuffs? They look those plastic things the police used in my time." She eyed the screwdriver carefully.

"4876 should do nicely."

Rose nodded and in seconds he was free. He groaned as the blood rushed back into his hands and feet and fell over when he tried to stand.

"Sorry you got a couple of burns from those weapons." Rose helped him to his feet, a little unsteady on hers and they both ended up gripping a support column. "I had to drag you in, and, well, I figured it was better to use you as cover and get you inside than to risk getting shot myself and both of us stuck outside with the TARDIS door wide open."

"Right. Good thinking." The Doctor waved vaguely towards the console. "Need to get us out of here. Give me a hand over to the…" He sucked in a quick breath as Rose grabbed his arm. "Not there." She let go quickly, her hand coming away covered in blood. "Think that would be on of those burns you mentioned."

Rose turned pale but nodded and gently helped him steady himself. "I can't carry you over there. I'm pretty much done in from our 'conversation' and dragging you in here. If I can keep us upright, think you can walk?"

"Have to." The Doctor gritted his teeth and Rose guided him slowly towards the console. The ship rocked as some kind of larger weapon was put to use on her outsides and they almost lost their footing. Finally, his hand closed around the edge of the console and he hit the dematerialization button taking them into the Vortex. Wordlessly, he and Rose turned and headed to the medical bay.

By the time they got there, Rose was dripping sweat and had lost all color. She was so unsteady on her feet she was gripping the edge of the beds as she went to fetch the dermal regenerator and the medical scanner for the Doctor. He managed to slide himself onto a bed and started the painful process of removing his coat. Rose fumbled with the scanner for a moment before finding the proper button to turn it on and frowned at the readout.

"Doctor, how many times do I have to remind you that nobody else can read this?" She turned the screen towards him and the swirling Gallifreyan script it contained. "Does me no good if you're out cold. You could bleed to death or something and I'd be sitting here all useless."

The Doctor quickly read the readout on the screen. He'd been hit three times – once on the arm, once on the middle of the side, and another his upper leg. He'd not noticed the last one. "Sorry. Meant to fix that." He took the scanner from her and set it down before looking at her. She was done in. "Think you've got enough strength left to help me out of these clothes? I don't think I can get to all the burns without a little assistance."

Rose shrugged and moved towards him. She gently helped peel his shirt off his arm and way from his side, grimacing at the nasty seared flesh. The Doctor closed his eyes and hissed as she used the dermal regenerator on the first burn. "Glad I thought you to use that all those years ago."

"One of the most used tools on the entire TARDIS." Rose smiled at him as the burn started to disappear. "Alright, where else are you hurt? To many of those funny shapes on the screen for just two." She was already starting on the second one, still leaning into the table to support herself and looking weaker by the second.

The Doctor nodded and motioned towards his leg. "Top of my leg, same side." Rose finished with the second burn and he shivered as she ran a hand gently down the newly formed flesh. She just nodded and took over when he fumbled with the belt on his trousers. It took a while to get them off and Rose was mumbling that next time she'd just cut them off for efficiency's sake, favorite pair or not. They were already ruined, what difference could it possibly make?

Rose shoved him a little roughly so he would lay more on his left side, back to her and pushed up his pants a bit to get to the burn. He couldn't see what she was doing, but he heard and felt the regenerator start working again. This burn seemed to be the worst if not the most painful and the Doctor sighed with relief as the regenerator finished the last little bit of cleanup. He jumped a little as he felt Rose slide up onto the bed behind him.

"Shove over. I don't think I'll make it my bed before I pass out." Rose's voice was close to his ear and he could feel her breath on the back of his head.

"I can share." The Doctor felt her chuckle a bit and then sighed with relief as she somehow managed to pull a blanket up over them using her feet to retrieve it from the foot of the bed. He wanted to turn around and look at her, make double sure she was alright, but the medical bed was too narrow and if he tried he'd likely nock them both off. Feeling a little exposed in just his rather unsubstantial under garments, he tried to forget that Rose was cuddled up mere centimeters behind him. He soon heard her breath even out and realized she was asleep. He should move. He could crawl to another bed…but his eyes didn't seem to want to stay open and she was so warm. He couldn't help but shift a little backwards, pressing his rear end into her and feeling her press back a little bit. It couldn't hurt for one night, could it? After all, they were going to have a busy day in the morning, tracking down the Pratorlusions and finding out what exactly they'd been up to. And Rose needed to rest after that stunt she'd pulled using the TARDIS to contact him. No reason to disturb her. The Doctor drifted off and his last conscious thought was that the TARDIS was once again very pleased with herself.


	6. Searching for meaning

Rose woke up slowly, wondrously warm and a little fuzzy feeling. She slowly opened her eyes, expecting a hangover. When the lights failed to cause her to wince, she blinked a few times and realized with a start that she was in the TARDIS med bay. She had to grab onto the edge of the bed to keep from falling off. Inches away, the Doctor was sleeping, his whole body wrapped up in the thin sheet from the bed rather like a cocoon, the blanket hanging precariously off her side of the bed. The events of the previous few days flowed back into her mind, and Rose had to close her eyes again to process it all. Her second morning as New Rose. It wasn't exactly perfect. The Doctor's tattered clothing from the day before was still on the floor, the medical equipment not far away on a table, and both of them could use a bath. Rose honestly didn't mind, however. It was nice to wake up next to someone, even platonically. It'd been over a hundred years since that had happened when it didn't involve some kind of a mission and over thirty since it had happened at all.

Rose smiled and inched away from the Doctor, carefully lowering herself off the bed. The Doctor mumbled something in what must have been his native language and rolled onto his back, flinging his right arm out and almost smacking her in the head. Rose held her breath, but the Doctor didn't wake up, instead he stretched rather like a cat, pulling the sheet out from under himself and knocking the heavier blanket to the floor. Rose picked it up and tucked it around him, stifling her laugh as he let out what sounded suspiciously like a purr and cuddled into the warmth of the blanket. Who knew the Doctor was part feline?

She tip toed out the door and silently asked the TARDIS if she'd mind letting her into the Doctor's room to get him a change of clothes. The TARDIS hummed in response, the door to his room suddenly appearing a few feet down the hall, wide open. Rose slowly entered, feeling a bit like a thief, and rummaged around his closet till she came up triumphantly with what appeared to be an exact replica of his now trashed trousers. She pulled out another matching jacket from the closet then a clean shirt and pants from a bureau drawer. She'd never been in his room before and she desperately didn't want to pry. Besides, the precariously stacked piles of books and what-not's were making her nervous. The TARDIS seemed to understand her desire to leave him his privacy and made sure everything she looked for was easily found. Rose neatly folded the bundle and tip toed back into the medical bay and laid the clothes down next to the Doctor, picking up the old ones and throwing them into the trash bin. She quietly put away the medical equipment and asked the TARDIS to keep the lights low for a while yet. The Doctor rarely slept and he could use the rest. Whatever the TARDIS had done to allow her to telepathically communicate with him the day before had taken a lot out of them both. Doctor, however, hadn't had the TARDIS supplying a constant stream of energy. Rose counted herself lucky.

Rose made her way back to her own room and rummaged around in the shopping bags for a suitable outfit. Knowing the Doctor, as soon as he awoke they'd be off in search of the mysterious aliens from the day before. While her quickly dawned cut-offs from the day before had preserved her modesty despite the unexpected adventure, it would be prudent to dress a bit more carefully today. She spilled the bags out on her bed and finally found a pair of sturdy trousers and a plain blouse. She'd come to think of the black dress trousers and a buttoned down blouse as her Torchwood Uniform. They'd always served her well in her last body, no reason to doubt them now. The Doctor had looked a little skeptical when she'd bought several sets the day before, but hadn't said anything. Really, the man wore the same suit everyday; he really didn't have a lot of room to talk. Although, she had noticed a blue suit in his closet next to the familiar brown. Perhaps he had found a little diversity somewhere along the line.

Rose rummaged a bit longer to find the necessary undergarments and a nice thick pair of socks before she headed to the bathroom. She shimmied out of the brown frock from the day before and gratefully stepped into the shower. Her first shower in years. She sighed as the water hit her shoulders and let out her own soft purr. She jumped a little at the vibrations in her chest the sound made. It took her a moment to process it. Respiratory bi-pass, two hearts, and evidently the capability to PURR! Rose let her head hit the tile wall repeatedly. This wasn't happening. She hadn't morphed into a female version of the Doctor. She wasn't ginger. She was not purring! She sat down in the tub, letting the shower rain down on her. This wasn't going to be easy. She cast a weary eye down at her toes and sighed. Yesterday she hadn't had time to really do a full inspection, to notice the differences. She'd just trotted off after the Doctor like it was any other day, any other day from 83 years ago.

Rose closed her eyes to block out the image of her hair from in front of her eyes. She'd gotten use to being old. She'd liked the grey hair and later even being bald, took less time in the morning honestly. She'd figured out how to button her blouse when the arthritis got really bad and she'd hated the dentures, but eventually accepted them. Hell, she'd gotten use to a wheel chair and the lack of ability to even control her body functions. Now, now she had a respiratory bi-pass system.

Rose shakily stood up, gripping the sides of the tub and the tile wall for support. How in God's name did the Doctor do this 9 times! How do you get use to waking up in a different body? How do you rationalize that? She reached for a bottle of shampoo and looked at it with suspicion. It was the half empty bottle she'd left here all those years ago and it smelled just the same, a hint of strawberry. She'd not bought strawberry shampoo since she'd been in Pete's world, opting for tea tree because it reminded her of the Doctor. The TARDIS must have stopped her things from aging. If she wasn't careful, Rose thought she might be able to fool herself into thinking she'd never left, so long as she avoided mirrors. She didn't want to do that.

She lathered her hair up and rinsed it out carefully, the suds swirling around the drain and spinning away into the darkness of the TARDIS plumbing. Rose felt the irrational desire to laugh. That was her old life going down the drain. That was 83 years of being on her own, 83 years of pretending she wasn't missing him still, 83 years of fighting the good fight with only Garth for company. 83 years of being just Rose Tyler. Now, now what was she?

Rose had never understood why the Doctor didn't use a name, a real proper name. Now she had an inkling of an idea. A name was something your family attached to you at birth; it limited you to what others defined as your property, your dominion. A name was a label, and with it came all the responsibilities and ties and meaning others put upon it, giving you little option in the matter. Rose Tyler had died twice, once in name alone and once in reality. The label was still affixed to that body, the dead woman. All the attachments, and responsibilities, and meaning went with that body, died with that body. What did this body have? The Doctor, she had the Doctor and the TARDIS. She didn't have family anymore. She didn't have any other friends. She didn't have a job or bank account or even her goldfish! She had only the Doctor and herself to define her. The Doctor rarely had even that much.

A title would be easier. A title was something to live up to, a purpose to adopt, an outside meaning to apply to yourself by your choice, a self created identity. A name, well a name was transient. Rose Tyler was dead. Only she had no title, no purpose to fall back on, to mold this new her around – not like the Doctor. All she had was the ghosts of the past and their haunting cry. Oh, now she understood how he forgot his name. There'd been no one to use it, not outside of his people which he'd avoided for centuries. No one to label him, to burden him with connection, to force upon him what he was before, to limit him to being one thing. He changed body but not purpose. He remained the Doctor by choice alone, a constant daily choice. At any time he could chuck it all, become something different with only a change of a single word.

Could she remain Rose Tyler by her choice alone? Could she accept her name as her title, her purpose? What would that title mean without the definitions others gave it?

Rose scrubbed at her new skin till it turned pink, trying in vain to make some kind of sense out of the jumble in her head. She'd never been one to define herself by her relationships. She was her own person. That of course was an illusion. Didn't matter what she saw herself as. Everyone else saw her as Jackie Taylor's daughter, than Jimmy or Mickey's girl, than the Doctor's companion, then Pete Tyler's mysterious daughter, than finally as the reclusive last ditch resource for Earth's salvation. They never saw HER. They only saw her in relation to others. Would it be so bad to go back to that meaning, to become just the Doctor's plus one?

Yes, yes it would. She turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. She wasn't a silly little girl anymore. She wouldn't be happy for long, just tagging along. She'd run her own team. She'd saved the world all by her little self. She wasn't going to be just a companion. Did the Doctor want that? Was he stupid enough to think they could go back to that?

Rose toweled off and dressed quickly before flopping down on her bed to stare at the ceiling. The Doctor hadn't ever treated her badly, at least not since he regenerated and even before that he'd been more overprotective than anything. This Doctor, well, he'd always acted like more of a team. He'd trusted her. Yesterday she'd been in her COMAND mode once he'd disappeared in the museum. He hadn't seemed to mind much once they'd found one another again. Of course, that had been in the middle of a crisis. What would he do later, if she asserted herself in some daily task, made her opinion known when she would have once stayed silent? Or worse, what would he do when she challenged him in the field, when their lives might depend on it?

Rose sighed. It wasn't just that she had no where else to go. She wanted to stay with the Doctor, wanted to be on the TARDIS and to bounce through space and time like a rubber band ball gone insane. She'd missed it, missed the life and the adventure and the quiet moments in between. God, she was confusing herself.

There was also another thing to consider. She wasn't 19 and scared of the unknown. She'd lived one life devoid of certain attachments, she was sure she wasn't about to do so again. She wasn't going to be happy with just flirting, not for long. It didn't look like the Doctor would either, at least not subconsciously. There'd been a tension since she'd gotten back, hanging between them. It wasn't just the whole mess at the restaurant. That she could honestly believe was the Doctor simply being the Doctor and not fully considering the consequences. She made a mental note to get some kind of Gallifreyan elementary anatomy book, she wasn't about to be surprised like that again.

No, they were going to have to resolve the nature of their relationship in some kind of formal fashion. The analytical part of her brain, the part she'd spent most of the last 83 years cultivating, was already constructing logical arguments, making up cost-benefit analysis's, and had already jumped ahead to the idea of biological compatibility and the implications. Her less rational mind, the one that still liked pink and wanted chips for breakfast told her that the calculating approach probably wouldn't be received well. It didn't have any better ideas, though.

With a frustrated muted wail, Rose jumped to her feet and stalked to the kitchen to make breakfast. She rampaged through the cabinets till she found pancake mix and maple syrup. She carefully tasted the syrup and was relived when the only effect it had was to send a warm ripple through her, somewhat like an after dinner cocktail rather than the aphrodisiac affect of the potatoes from yesterday. Her mother had always said she was addicted to potatoes. Rose chuckled to herself. The Doctor had bananas, she had potatoes. She wasn't quite sure what that said about her personality. Well, the way to man's heart was always supposed to be his stomach….

A half hour later the table was set with breakfast for two and a bleary eyed Doctor was just coming in through the door, hair still wet from a shower. He only blinked at her till a large cuppa was firmly placed in his hands. Seconds after the steam wafted to his nose, his head snapped up and a wide grin split his face.

"ROSE!" He yipped gleefully. "You made breakfast!"

She smirked. "I remembered your cooking and thought it best that I handle the food for a while. I have no desire to land back in the medical bay." He pouted for a moment and Rose reached a hand out to pat his arm. "Would you like some banana pancakes?" Rose chuckled as he almost bounced in his chair. "You know, you remind me of my little brother at three when you do that."

"Can't help it." The Doctor sobered for a moment. "I missed you, and not just because of the pancakes."

"I know." Rose smiled at him as she set his plate down. "I missed you too." She sat down in her chair and picked up her fork. Without looking up from her plate, she mumbled, "More than I probably should have."

The Doctor eyed her carefully. "What do you mean?"

Rose put down her fork and laid her head in her hands. "I'm just having a little trouble adjusting. I mean, I just died!" She raised her head and huffed. "I'm not sure what to do with myself. Hell, I'm not sure I'm even me! I mean, I've got nothing, Doctor. Nothing. None of the things that I use to define who Rose Tyler is matter here. They don't exist. It's like I've jumped into my own past and erased my future. I know, that won't make since to you, Time Lord and all. But for me, well, coming back makes it seem like the last 83 and half years never happened. The only way I can tell they did is that I jump when I look in the mirror and evidently a warm shower now makes me purr!"

The Doctor started laughing. "Really? That's all it takes?"

"Doctor." Rose's tone was dangerous. "I've got a bone to pick with you about that later. Right now I've got other things on my mind."

"Rose," He reached a hand across the table and took hers. "Do you remember when I regenerated? How I went around asking what kind of man I was?" She nodded. "It's going to be crazy for a while. You'll think you like something to find out you hate it. You'll expect yourself to react one way to a situation and find you're doing something completely unexpected. You'll cry when you would have laughed, you'll get bored when you should be fascinated. It's normal, as normal as this whole process can be. It's going to be a while before you figure yourself out."

"We don't have a while. There's some species out there up to no good. There's a whole universe to protect." Rose was crying and she couldn't stop it. "And there's us. I mean, what are we, Doctor? Am I your companion again? Your partner? Do you even want me here? I mean, I'm not me!"

The Doctor forgot about his pancakes and swiftly moved around the table, pulling her into a hug and letting her cry on his shoulder. "Oh, Rose, I'd want you with me no matter what. You are still you! I guess it's easier for me to accept this. I've had friends regenerate before so I know that it rarely changes what really matters. So we've got to figure out a few things? We've handled worse than this!" He pulled back and tilted her chin up to look at him and he smiled. "Rose Tyler, you were never just my companion. You were my Rose. You are my Rose." He frowned. "I can't explain it more than that, so don't bother to ask. You..." He dropped her chin and his voice hitched a tiny bit. "You belong with me, don't you?"

"I promised you forever." Rose sniffled. "I meant it, I still mean it. Just, I can't forgot the time we've had apart. I can't go back to what I was, regeneration or not."

The Doctor nodded. "I know and I wouldn't want you to." The Doctor looked hard into her eyes and he shook his head in resignation. "You don't believe I mean that do you?"

Rose snorted. "Not really. I mean, how can you? How can you even understand what that means when we don't know yet?"

The Doctor pulled his chair around the table and sat down next to her, still holding her hands. "Let me ask you something. If I died tomorrow, turned into a new me. What would you do?"

"I'd cry." Rose didn't hesitate to answer. "I mean, I liked the old you and I like this you. I'd miss you." She frowned. "But you'd still be here of course, I'd just have to get use to ..." Realization dawned. "I'd have to look for what was familiar and sort out what wasn't. Just like before."

"Exactly." He beamed at her. "You'd adjust. You got over my regeneration, what makes you think I can't get through yours? Rose, I'm nearly a millennium old. I've had a lot of practice at this, after all there use to be a whole planet of us. I've known quite a few people who've regenerated. I've also had centuries of separation between me and what few friends I had of my own kind. Somehow we manage to find a connection despite those things, forge on. For us, well, it should be easier. After all, we have a whole future to mold don't we? All the time there is to figure it out."

Rose eyed him critically. "I'm still not feeling 100 sure about all this." He smiled sadly and released her hand only to poke her in the nose.

"I know." He stood up and took his chair back to the other side of the table and sat back down to eat his pancakes, making it clear that as far as he was concerned the conversation was over. Suddenly his perkiness returned and between huge mouthfuls of banana pancake he asked her what she wanted to do today.

Rose raised an eyebrow and shook herself, trying to regain some kind of composure. "Well, first thing on my agenda was figuring out what the bloody hell was going on with the whole kidnapping thing. Then, I need to have a serious discussion with you about what exactly I can expect out of this whole species switch. I have no idea what's even safe to eat! I mean, I know you're allergic to aspirin, but is that just you or a species thing? I'd rather not stumble blindly into another body anytime soon because of some random fact you forgot to tell me about." Rose snorted. "Lastly, I'd rather like a nice long bath with a good book and a Beatles album."

The Doctor grinned wildly. "You made a list!"

"I like lists." Rose frowned. "I found them quite useful. I also like to color code." Her eyes glazed over just a bit. "I mean, isn't there something wonderful about a nice clean color coded outline?"

The Doctor stopped eating and looked at her carefully. "You are joking, right?" Rose's smile didn't leave him much doubt – she wasn't. "Is this new or have you always been a closet organization freak?"

Rose actually giggled. "Well, I did always rather like office supplies as a child. But no, at Torchwood I started to re-organize their archives. I was bored sitting around the office in between crisis, so I learned to be obsessive compulsive. It's an addiction."

"You are not to go anywhere near my storage rooms, Rose Tyler." The Doctor huffed. "I'd never find anything ever again. I thrive in chaos."

He never saw the hunk of syrup covered pancake till it hit him square in the face.


	7. Felt Good to Be Out of the Rain

_A/N: Special thanks to my brand new beta Denaliyasha. Thank you thank you thank you!  
_

If the Doctor was sure of anything, it was that Rose Tyler covered in syrup with a bit of pancake hanging off her right ear was a sight worth cherishing. Even if she was chasing him with a spatula down the corridors of the TARDIS, laughing madly. The last food fight he'd been in had been a sort of ritual on a major grain producing planet, and had been very boring. This? This was more fun than he'd had in ages! The Doctor rounded a corner and skidded to a stop. The TARDIS was stubbornly refusing to open the door to the wardroom room, most likely afraid of them getting it all syrupy. Rose nearly ran into him before she managed to stop, a rather maniacal gleam in her eye.

"Doctor, I do believe I have you cornered!" She smirked and waved the spatula at him, a half empty bottle of syrup in her other hand. "Surrender or face my wrath!"

The Doctor grinned and raised his arms in capitulation. "You wouldn't hurt an unarmed man, would you?" His grin turned cheeky, then his eyes widened in panic and he stammered as what was left of the syrup hit him square in the face and dripped to the floor in a puddle. Rose's laughter echoed off the walls. He sputtered for a moment before catching site of Rose through the syrup in his eyes. Her cheeks were flushed red and her mouth was slightly open as she panted, trying to catch her breath. Her hair was frizzed out and bits of their breakfast were still clinging to it, and her neat blouse and trousers were streaked with syrup. Her eyes, however, were dancing.

Rassilon, he'd missed how expressive her eyes could be. He couldn't help staring at them, watching as her pupils dilated in the dim hallway lightening. He couldn't help it when his hand reached out to wipe a bit of mess off her cheek. He couldn't help it that he leaned forward and pulled her closer. He couldn't help it that his tongue just had to get that last bit off the side of her nose.

He wasn't sure what he expected from Rose as the sugary substance twirled around his taste buds, his mind cataloging Rose, analyzing her at the most personal level. Maybe a slap, or even a giggle, if he was lucky. Instead, he got a loud moan followed by a deep vibrating purr. The Doctor jerked back, surprised by his own actions and downright shocked by her reaction. Rose closed her eyes as he pulled away. She leaned forward and rested her head against his chest, and he couldn't stop his own purr from shuddering through his body. He hugged her closer and closed his own eyes. He hadn't a clue why he'd done that, and any second Rose was going to ask him what he was doing, what _they_ were doing.

Only she didn't. She stayed leaning against him for a long moment before she pulled back and looked him square in the eye. She smiled, the mischief back in her eyes before she leaned forward and licked him, from the bottom of his jaw all the way to the side of his eyebrow. He gaped at her, and she smirked before letting him go and stepping back.

"You know, I've had a lot of fantasies over the years, Doctor. Several of them included you covered in some kind of substance, but I have to say maple syrup wasn't one of them." She chuckled, and the Doctor could feel a blush creeping up his neck. His ears were bright red, he just knew they were. Rose shook her head slightly. "I'm adding this to the talk we need to have, Doctor. But right now, I think we both need another shower and then there's the slight bit of alien investigation to get to, isn't there?"

"Right." The Doctor pulled himself back together and raked a hand through his hair only to get his fingers nearly stuck in the sticky strands. "I'll just...go shower then. Alone. Right, shower..." He shimmied along the wall, inched his way past Rose, and almost broke into a run once he was by her. Shower. Good idea. Clean idea. Nothing dirty about a shower. No, not at all. Good clean fun, a shower. Better with two of course...

It didn't take long to get clean. It took even less time to find the book he'd promised himself he'd dig up for Rose. A nice big thick tome chock full of solid information on their biology. He made sure it would properly translate for her. He stared at it, remembering the first time he'd laid a hand on it. He'd been a kid then, first body, not even in the Academy yet. His father had given him the book to help explain how his Time Sense worked after his own attempts at teaching his son had failed. The Doctor ran his hand gingerly over the rather tattered cover. Sometimes he forgot how much he'd learned over the years. It was so easy to pretend you'd always known things and forget you had to learn them. Rose didn't know. She couldn't know what it all meant. It wasn't fair to keep her in the dark, especially not if they kept this teasing up.

The Doctor knew. The Doctor knew what it meant to _lick_ another of their species, even if the entire practice had been eradicated eons before his birth. He knew what it meant when Rose purred for him, and what it meant that he purred back.

He could tell her in technical terms. He could explain how the muscles that allow their respiratory bi-pass to function were semi-voluntary and that when in certain emotional states the muscles would tense, causing them to vibrate as air passed over them – the effect sounding remarkably like an Earth feline purr. He could outline the exact differences of a Gallifreyan tongue and the chemical make-up of the surface of their skin. He could explain that just by licking him, she could tell what family he was from, determine his general state of health, find out if he would be able to _perform_ to her standards, if they'd be _suitable_ for one another. He could calmly inform her that what they'd just done to one another in the hall, that simple act of mutual syrup removal, would have once been construed as the start to a mating ritual, the Gallifreyan equivalent of 3rd base. He could pull out his glasses and fake scientific detachment. He could. For all of five seconds, and then his ears would turn a red bright enough to rival a supernova.

This would have to wait till they solved the immediate crisis. Rose was right about that. But if he put off giving her the book, he'd only keep finding excuses. The next crisis would happen and they'd get distracted. They'd get distracted and he'd get carried away again at some point, and violate her again without her even knowing that he'd done something so incredibly inappropriate. His hands trembled as he slipped the book into Rose's room through the slightly cracked door, the sounds of the shower telling him it would be a few more minutes before they could start their investigation. He headed for the console room, his feet taking him there by habit as his mind still swam with questions surrounding his current predicament.

Rose wanted him, in a sexual sense. He knew that now, even if she didn't. She'd purred when he'd licked her! That was a purely physical reaction, of course. Only she'd licked him back. It had to have been instinct; she couldn't have known the meaning behind it, the implication of what she'd done. That didn't change the fact she'd done it, though, but it certainly made him a pervert for starting it! He was too old for this nonsense. At the rate he was going he'd end up on the galactic sex offender registry.

The Doctor sat down on the jump seat and stared at the rotor, the green light helping him to focus his thoughts. He knew why he was behaving like this. Simple biological reaction: the drive to mate, to maintain the species. Didn't matter that his people had tried to wipe that drive out. They had never entirely managed it, of course, since it was rather impossible to do that without ending up like the Daleks. They'd done a remarkable job, though, and come rather close. After all, they'd developed the Looms and stopped the natural birth process entirely. There hadn't been a natural born Gallifreyan in oh, about 896 earth years on the Doctor's time line. With the Looms in operation and the societal stigma in place, Gallifrey had pretty much been a sex free zone. The Doctor sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. If he was human he'd say he was randy. This wasn't going to be as simple as that.

Rose was feeling it to. She had to be. It was only going to get worse. Oh, it wasn't some biological compulsion. It wasn't going to force them into anything, but Gallifreyans were a telepathic species, constantly linked, even if only distantly. Eventually Rose's mind would seek his out, the only other mind in the universe that was compatible to hers. It already had once, back when he was kidnapped, only the TARDIS had been their chaperon. If she did such a thing again, when they were close together, in the kitchen or the console room, if she touched him at the same time without the TARDIS there to block it...they'd link. They'd link, and he wouldn't be able to stop it. His head already throbbed, ached, _hurt_ for her. He'd been so alone, so empty for so long. Her mind in his had been excruciating, but now that it had gone the emptiness that had returned was even worse. A proper link, a proper old-fashioned Time-Lordy marriage link was rather inevitable. The unending silent echo in his head, in her head, would drive them to it. The Doctor wouldn't initiate it, but Rose would eventually – most likely by accident and purely on instinct – desperate to not be alone and out of control from lack of training. And he wasn't going to stop it when it happened, no matter how guilty he'd feel later and how upset she'd be when she found it out. They were the only two of their kind. They were going to end up clinging to each other like drowning people in a typhoon. It was only a matter of time.

Of course, she'd read the book when they were done with this thing with the Pratorlusions. So maybe she wouldn't accidentally reach for his mind. Maybe she'd control herself. Maybe he didn't want her too. Or maybe... maybe she'd come to him knowing what it meant, what would happen. This was Rose, after all. She'd tried to give him forever once. She'd spent a lifetime missing him. Maybe she'd want that kind of a link. Maybe...the Doctor stopped his train of thought. Too many maybes.

He didn't notice as Rose walked quietly into the room and eyed him carefully where he sat in the jumpseat. "Thank you for the book." He looked up at her, starting slightly at the sound of her voice, and gave a small smile. She returned it, her eyes showing a hint of sadness. "I know, we still need to talk."

The Doctor nodded. "Rose..." he lowered his eyes and stood up to face her, hands in his pockets. "Rose, I should apologize." He glanced up at her and he could feel his ears heating up. "I... I behaved in a way..." He swallowed thickly. "Anyway, when you read the book please know I didn't mean to..." He trailed off and shook his head in self recrimination as Rose chuckled at him.

"I knew you were kinky, Doctor. After the restaurant, I had a pretty good idea what I was doing cooking you banana pancakes." His head shot up, his eyes wide. Rose smirked at him. "Course, the whole licking thing was a bit of a surprise. Really puts some of your habits into a whole new perspective." The Doctor's mouth dropped open. Rose grinned wider. "The book, it had an index. I thought I should look up a few things right away." She smiled, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth. "I'm sure there's more to it than what the book said, a little more practical information and less of a scientific explanation might be in order." She cocked her head to the side. "Unless you'd care to help me experiment?"

He choked. "I..." His ears were going to fall off, he was sure.

Rose rolled her eyes at him. "Honestly, you act like this has never come up before! At your age this shouldn't be embarrassing. Hell, I'm pretty much beyond it and I've not even hit two hundred."

The Doctor sat back down in the jump seat. "It hasn't ever happened before." It was Rose's turn to choke and the Doctor sheepishly grinned at her, running a hand through his hair. "My people didn't exactly encourage it. Oh sure, I've _danced_, Rose. But not with another Gallifreyan." He sighed. "This is a rather unexplored subject for me. On my planet, all of this was so taboo it wasn't even discussed. That book was written before Rassilon or it wouldn't have even mentioned it."

"But," Rose stuttered. "You had kids!"

The Doctor shrugged. "Looms didn't require mating. Only a genetic sample. This is a whole new territory." The Doctor eyed her carefully. "Rose, there's quite a bit you wouldn't have had time to read yet. There's...ramifications to things. You need to know all of it." He stood up and walked over to her and took her hand. "See, you and I, we're going to have to set out some pretty clear rules for each other." He looked up and stared straight into her beautiful new eyes, still as expressive as the old ones. "We can't do casual, Rose. Not us. If there were more, if Gallifrey wasn't gone it, wouldn't be a such a... pressing desire. But..." He sighed and dropped her hand in order to cup the side of her face, gently rubbing his thumb across her cheek. "What we did yesterday, talking telepathically, it's making us a little..."

Rose closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. "Horny?"

"Yeah." His voice cracked a bit. "Side-effect. I have to warn you, we can't risk it again." She opened her eyes and the Doctor smiled at her, his pain clear behind his glasses. "I won't be able to let you go, Rose. I haven't had anyone up here," he tapped his temple roughly, "in so long. It's like offering water to dying man in the desert. I'm likely to drink myself to death."


	8. Guilt

Rose eyed the Doctor carefully, attempting not to laugh at him. She was trying to be understanding, she really was, only it wasn't coming across that way. The Doctor, the big bad Oncoming Storm, was a virgin.

Okay, not _technically_, but how exactly did he manage _never_ going there with his own species? A tiny giggle escaped and she shook her head to try and cover it up, taking a step back from him as she did so. "Exactly how uptight were your people?"

The Doctor frowned slightly and then suddenly grinned and gave his own chuckle, bouncing away and back to the console. "Oh, you have no _idea_, Rose. They wrote the book on prudishness!" He flipped a dial, twirled a knob, and with what she could only describe as a predatory grin, pulled a lever. The TARDIS shuddered and the rotor sped up, the distinct sound of temporal movement starting.

Rose rolled her eyes and let him change the subject. They'd have plenty of time later and it wasn't exactly like he could avoid her for the next two millenniums. "So, when and where are we going? Don't we have a little ship full of chartreuse scaly nasties to go intimidate?"

The Doctor leaned back against the wall and put his hands in his pockets. "Of course! We're heading back right now." The TARDIS shuddered and Rose rocked on her feet as the ship landed. "I took us back to about an hour after I was taken from the museum and you came back here. I thought I might be able to pick something up on the scanners." He stood up straight and headed to the view screen, tweaking a few settings before frowning at the display then smacking it soundly. "It's not picking anything up." He pulled his glasses out and then squinted at the text. "It should at least be picking up the residual energy from the transmat beam that nabbed me."

Rose frowned and shoved him over a bit to get a look at the readout before huffing and glaring at him. "You are going to have to either teach me to read that or change the damn display." She jabbed a finger at the geometric patterns and then squinted at it herself, leaning forwards. "Wait a minute. I know I can't read this, but what about this bit here? It doesn't look like the rest."

The Doctor leaned forward and tapped the screen to enlarge the wave pattern Rose had pointed to. "You're right! They piggy-backed the transmat signal on top of the cell phone carrier! That's brilliant!"

Rose snorted. "Good for them. Who are they anyway?"

The Doctor squinted harder at the screen and then flipped the readout over to another scanner and frowned deeply at the reading before answering, his attention still riveted on the swirling text and numbers. "Pratorlusions." He smacked the screen again. "Never run into them before – generally keep to themselves, so I'm not sure why they'd be after me." It took him a moment to realize Rose hadn't said anything in response. He turned around and found Rose pale as a sheet sitting on the edge of the jumpseat like she'd fallen onto. "Rose?"

She looked up at him, her eyes bright with shock. "Maybe they weren't after you." Her voice was hoarse, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the seat. She swallowed the rise of bile in her throat. "I didn't recognize them, never actually saw them in their uniforms the last time. The scales aren't actually part of them, more like a form of armor."

The Doctor moved over to her side and took her hand. "Rose, you know about them?"

She nodded slowly, not looking him in the eye. "They had a ship crash land on Pete's World's about 10 years ago, my time. I was in charge of trying to communicate with them." She finally looked up at him, fear clearly visible in her expression. "They have multiverse and temporal travel, Doctor. I tried to make contact with them, to tell them about their ship…" She closed her eyes and shuddered. "I'd hoped I could get them to take me back here while I was at it."

The Doctor squeezed her hand. "I take it you didn't have a lot of luck."

Rose snorted and shook her head. "They refused to communicate with _lower_ life forms. Two of the crew of the ship had survived the crash. One was a child. She had actually dared to talk to us while the adult refused to even look at me. When the others landed we assumed they'd pick up the survivors and leave." Rose's voice went cold and her eyes hardened. "They shot the two right in front of us. The little girl, they didn't make it quick, Doctor. They landed, shot the adult dead and wounded the girl, then took off. No word, nothing." Rose gritted her teeth before continuing. "There wasn't much we could do for her. It took her a week to die. I was the only one that could talk to her of course. A holdover of my time on the TARDIS – somehow even across the Void she was translating for me." Rose gave a small shudder. "The child's name was Eracxel. She was on the ship going to visit her father at a military base where he was a commander. He was the one that shot her for daring to consort with lesser species, made it a slow death as punishment. She wasn't even old enough to go to school."

"Why would they come after you, though?" The Doctor frowned. "If they were that against contact with less developed worlds, than why bother?"

"Because I ordered their ship destroyed." Rose looked up at him, pain deep in her eyes. "They didn't just kill their survivors, they wiped out the entire town where the ship had crashed. They were hunting down Torchwood staff across the planet, trying to kill anything that had ever had contact with their people. I managed to get a lock on the ship and…" Rose's shoulders dropped. "I ordered a strike. They hadn't expected us to have the advanced weaponry we'd developed on the station and from trading. They'd underestimated our tech level. It's what I'd always planned for. I made sure Torchwood kept the alien tech low key, hidden. That way if there ever was a threat…"

"They wouldn't see it coming." The Doctor frowned. "Rose, you didn't have a choice. If they were attacking your people you did what you needed to."

Rose shook her head and whipped around to glare at the Doctor. "The Pratorlusions travel in family vessels, Doctor. I didn't just kill a ship full of soldiers. I killed their families."


	9. New Beginnings

The Doctor sat back in shock

The Doctor sat back in shock. "How many?"

Rose shook her head. "I don't know, but it was at least a couple hundred." She looked up at him, regret and pain clear. "I knew." She closed her eyes and gave a deep shuddering breath. "I knew about the ships. Eracxel told me. And I still gave the command." She opened her eyes and stared unseeing at the glowing Time Rotor. She suddenly snorted, the sound lacking its usual humor. "I remember being so mad at Harriet Jones for the whole Sycorax incident. I'm no better."

The Doctor grabbed Rose by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. "No. You are so much better, Rose. You didn't kill them while they were retreating did you?" Rose shook her head and the Doctor grinned. "Good old Rose. Always a good girl, you are." He tweaked her chin. "Now, we've got a bit of problem then." The Doctor frowned. "Never had a companion with an entire species out for their blood. Of course, practically speaking, it's not that unusual of a position for _me _to be in, so we might as well operate on the same plan."

"What plan?" Rose asked suspiciously. "Since when do you have a _plan_?"

The Doctor positively beamed. "Talk to them!"

Rose's jaw dropped. "Talk! Doctor, in case you didn't notice, they trans-matted you out of a museum and held you captive! They killed over three thousand on Pete's World! They chased me through time, space, and a bloody alternate universe!"

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, I am a bit curious about that." He rubbed the back of his neck in thought. "I don't quite remember them having multi-verse travel before." He whirled around and started reading through the TARDIS files on the Pratorlusions. "Ah…." He pushed his glasses back up and turned around to face Rose, a rather smug look on his face. "They didn't."

"Excuse me?" Rose stood up and walked over to him, not bothering to try and read the display. "They do have it, 'cause they're here."

"Now." The Doctor smirked. "They have it _now_, Rose. They didn't _before_." The Doctor's grin widened as Rose's confusion grew. "Thing is, when the Time Lords died," his voice lost a bit of its joviality, "there wasn't anyone running around regulating things. The Pratorlusions had only time travel but not multi-verse travel, until we weren't around anymore to stop them. They've developed it since the War." The Doctor thumped the console happily. "They were the ones that managed to stabilize things! I thought it was a natural phenomenon!" He whirled around and grabbed Rose's hand. "That's how I managed to finally get back to get you. The whole multi-verse was sort of shimmery after the Time War, unstable, bouncy." The Doctor waved his free arm around like crazy. "All of a sudden it hardened back up. It was the Pratorlusions. They took over for the Time Lords, stabilizing the spaces in-between universes so people could travel around again."

"Why?" Rose asked quietly. "What would be the point? They aren't like Time Lords, they exist in both universes so it's got to be confusing for them."

The Doctor cocked his head to the side and looked at her. "Humans would have done the same thing if they could, Rose. Because it's _there_." He smiled at her reassuringly. "It's the drive to find things out, to explore. It's what makes you apes so special. Most species don't have it."

"Great," Rose huffed. "I just happen to commit genocide against another species that does, and also happens to have tech to rival Time Lords." She angrily pushed her hair back behind her ears and sat back down on the jump-seat. "Fantastic."

The Doctor shrugged. "We do have one advantage here."

"That being?" Rose asked, one hand placed on her hip and her glare ready and waiting.

The Doctor grinned and bounced a bit in place. "New new Rose. They don't know you're you. They want Rose Tyler, old human woman, not Rose Tyler – ginger Gallifreyan."

Rose looked at him as if by staring she could somehow figure out how his brain worked. "So, you're planning on phoning them up, telling them Rose Tyler is dead, they'll believe you and we'll all go on our merry way?"

"Yup." He struck a dramatic pose and smiled. "Good plan. Solid plan."

"Only eventually word will get back to them that Rose Tyler is still traveling around in a blue box with a Time Lord on a sugar high." She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Unless you expect me to start using a different name or something."

"No." The Doctor frowned. "I'd really rather you didn't. I'm a bit found of it actually, your name." His ears turned just a touch pink. "It's so short! Gallifrey didn't have _short_ names, not real names anyway…" He trailed off, rubbing his neck for a moment before he sort of deflated and sat down heavily on the grating. "It would buy us some time at least."

Rose snorted. "Yeah, except they're time travelers. It might take them 100,000 years to figure it out and we could still end up with a problem next week." The Doctor actually cringed and Rose took pity on him and sat down next to him. "Look, I'm not saying it's not worth a try, just…they might be twice as angry when they figure out you've lied." She smiled fondly and reached a hand out to take his. "I'd rather not have them out for both of us."

The Doctor nodded and squeezed her hand before standing back up and pulling her with him. "It's the best I've got. I don't want to fight them, Rose." He sighed and impulsively pulled her into a tight hug. "They made it possible for me to get you back! They…they could be the next Time Lords." His eyes pleaded with her as they parted and Rose closed her eyes.

"Alright, we'll try it your way, Doctor." She opened her eyes and stared into his for a long moment. "I don't really want to fight either. I'm rather tired of the fighting."

The Doctor's mouth twitched but he didn't smile. "I'll just ring them up then." He quickly hugged Rose again and then turned around to the console, lacking his usual springiness. It didn't take long before he'd managed to patch a signal into the Pratorlusion ship

Rose backed slowly away from the console, long experience telling her where the edge of the camera field would be and she made sure she was outside its range. The console gave a small beep and the larger view-screen filled with a rather unhappy looking chartreuse covered Pratorlusion, that just so happened to look remarkably like he wanted to rip off the Doctor's head.

The Doctor didn't seem affected at all by the Pratorlusion's dour expression; instead he smiled and gave the camera a small wave. "Hello! We didn't have a chance to talk the last time we met. I thought proper introductions were in order." The chartreuse alien narrowed its eyes and let out a keening sound that Rose knew was their equivalent of a warning growl. The Doctor's posture changed subtly, his eagerness instantly taking on a more calculated air, his body tense as if ready to spring. His voice hardened and a hint of the Oncoming Storm leaked into his eyes. "Care to explain why you abducted me?"

The Pratorlusion keened again and slammed a fist down on its control panel causing the image to blur for a moment before stabilizing. "You took one human known as Rose Tyler from the other universe. We spent years looking for her and were about to have justice when you and your antiquated blue box interfered. What have you done with her, Time Lord?"

Suddenly it was if the Doctor deflated, his shoulders slumped and his eyes turned haunted. "She died, in my arms. I was too late." His voice hitched a small bit and with sudden clarity Rose realized what her death, however short, had done to him. "I ran out of time."

The keening got louder. "What reason did you have for taking her?"

The Doctor looked up at the screen, his eyes sad but hard. "Rose was my best friend. She had been trapped in the other universe after saving this one. I'd spent over 80 years, subjective, looking for a way back to her." His eyes briefly closed. "Thank you for firming up the barrier walls. I wasn't able to do it alone without the resources of Gallifrey. As soon as I detected what your people had accomplished I went to find her." The Doctor caught her eyes quickly before turning back to the screen. "I didn't really expect her to be alive still... I'd promised her I'd be there for her, in the end. I was just glad I got to hold her hand one last time."

The keening had lessened but the Pratorlusion's displeasure was still clear, its suspicion evident in its posture. "Why did you take her off the planet? Why bring her here to die?"

The Doctor's back snapped up straight and his eyes blazed again with anger. "You know I'm a Time Lord, you can tell that this ship is a TARDIS. Your people are one of the few that remembers my kind, our traditions, our reasons for existing. You have begun the work we no longer can do. I should not have to explain to _you_ why."

"I do not require an explanation so much as a justification, Time Lord." The chartreuse figure glared.

Again, Rose could sense the Oncoming Storm in the Doctor, his anger and his hurt poorly hidden. "I wanted her to die in the vortex! She may have been human but she deserved to be one of us! The Academy would never have admitted her, even if it still existed, but she would have made an incredible Time Lady. The only thing I could do for her was to take her home to die." It was the Doctor's turn to slam his fist on to the console. "I took her here so she could leave this existence in the vortex, as was her right."

The Pratorlusion leaned back in its chair and gave the Doctor a thoughtful once over. "You loved this human. The last of the great Time Lords, loved a human." There was snickering sound over the connection. Obviously there were more Pratorlusions in the background, watching and amused by the turn of events.

Rose expected the Doctor to deny it, but instead he caught her eye and quietly answered. "Yes, I did." He reluctantly looked back at the screen and away from her. "She was more of a family to me than all the life on Gallifrey ever was." His expression suddenly became as immobile as granite. "Now explain to me why you would be after my Rose?"

The story was pretty much exactly as Rose had told it, only from the other side. The man they'd been talking to was named Davexil and was from Pete's universe. He was Eracxel's uncle. He was out for "justice" for the death of his brother and his family as well as all those on the ship. They had learned who had ordered the strike and had been trying to find Rose for several of their years, subjectively. Surprisingly, given his brother's actions and attempts to remove anyone that had had contact with a "lesser species" or any "lesser being" that had contact with them, Davexil wasn't inclined to blow up Earth in revenge and he had even been content to allow nature to take its course. They had been monitoring Rose's condition for weeks, linear, and had been perfectly happy to let her die from her disease. Davexil seemed to think her dying alone and friendless in a bare hospital room a fitting punishment. The Doctor's last minute rescue had robbed them of the pleasure of watching her last few pained moments.

Davexil explained his motives and gave what sounded vaguely like a terse apology for kidnapping the Doctor. At the time they didn't realize what he was and had grabbed him in the hopes of finding out what he had done to their prize. When he'd been on their ship they had been running scans, trying to figure out who and what he was. They'd finally realized he was a Time Lord shortly before he'd been rescued. It seemed that the Pratorlusions still held a considerable amount of respect for the lost Time Lords and still remembered them as more than legends. For the Pratorlusions it had been close to three millennia since the Time War, but they still honored the Doctor and his people for the gift of the Vortex and the ability to travel between universes. The Pratorlusions were working to recreate the safeguards that the Time Lords had made, much as the Doctor had suspected. They had even started to employ many of the same laws that had governed time travel prior to the War.

Rose could see how much the conversation was hurting the Doctor. He'd bared his soul to this man and now he was actively contemplating helping them setup a new system to take over for Gallifrey. If it worked, his people would cease to be even legend, with the Pratorlusions taking over their role in Time. It was inevitable, really, that someone would rise to fill the gap. The Doctor could not be the sole champion of Time, he could not do it all alone. The reapers were evidence of that, the closure of multi-verse travel a painful reminder that one man, even as wonderful a man as the Doctor, couldn't police all of creation.

The Doctor's main concern was the Pratorlusion idea of superiority. The Doctor, in a voice laden with pain, explained the end of the Time War, the death of his people. He told Davexil the cost of such an attitude. Davexil listened and Rose thought, just maybe, he heard the Doctor and his warning.

Eventually the two men had said all there really was to say. The Doctor had promised to consult with the Pratorlusions when they needed help. They'd agreed on a set frequency for messages and all that. Rose really hadn't followed most of the technical details. Davexil eyed the Doctor carefully and then ordered the others to leave the control room, asking for a private word with the Doctor.

"You have lied to us, Time Lord." Davexil stated flatly, without any evident anger. "There is another traveling with you. I know your kind. If you loved this Rose you would not have replaced her so quickly." Davexil narrowed his eyes and huffed. "The one that is with you, she is Rose Tyler."

Rose sighed heavily and stepped into range of the screen, slowly taking the Doctor's hand. He squeezed it to reassure her. Davexil looked her over and shook his head in confusion.

"I do not understand. She does not appear as Rose Tyler did. Our records of the rescue she preformed on our ship indicate she is also a Time Lord? How is this possible?" Davexil keened in warning and the Doctor reached his free hand up to rub his neck.

"I'm not really sure, Davexil. Rose did die. I didn't lie to you at all." He turned and looked at Rose, back to the screen. "Somehow her genetic structure was altered during our travels together. At her death, she regenerated as if she were one of my people."

Davexil keened louder for a moment before stopping the sound abruptly, his shoulders sagging. "By the laws of my people I should kill you both." He let his head fall into his hands and glared at them through the screen. "My brother was foul and his actions were not ones I would ever condone. But he was my brother."

Rose couldn't stop her tears from falling. "I didn't want to order the strike. You have to believe that! I tried to find another way, but he was killing so many people! And he'd killed Eracxel! She was just a kid." Rose sniffed hard and the Doctor put an arm around her in support. "I don't understand why he did it, any of it."

Davexil's eyes hardened as he looked at Rose and his fingers twitched on the control panel. "There are two philosophies on Pratorlusia. One my brother followed. I am sure Eracxel explained it to you." Rose nodded and he continued. "The other I have chosen. My brother and those that follow his way of thinking do not travel in time or in universes, Rose Tyler. They avoid all outside contact. They believe it is their solemn duty to maintain the purity of our species. They are a dwindling people. The ship you destroyed was one of only three left." Davexil looked towards his ceiling and sighed heavily. "Traveling in time is a heavy burden, Rose Tyler. One I am sure you have some concept of. My brother's way of life has only a few more centuries of being before they cease to exist, of their own stupidity. I have seen the last of them go but I could not tell them it was pointless."

"The future isn't fixed, Davexil." The Doctor spoke quietly. "What we have discussed here could change many things."

"True." Davexil actually smiled. "I hope it does so, Time Lord. But what I am trying to tell the former human is that my brother acted out of fear and the inborn knowledge that his way of life was not fated to remain. Had he lived, he would have been tried by my people the same as we would have tried Rose Tyler had she been physically capable of withstanding the ordeal when I found her." Davexil stood and slowly stripped of the chartreuse scales his people wore. Underneath the man was quite short with slightly pink skin and rather sharp looking teeth. It was no wonder they wore the scaled suits. Without them they were less than impressive. Davexil smoothed down the embroidered tonic he wore under his armor and sighed heavily before looking Rose in the eye. "We are not the warriors we pretend to be, former human. This is a case of the worst possible first contact."

Rose couldn't help but smile. "I wish it hadn't happened like this." She looked cautiously at the Doctor and back at the screen. "Will you take me to trial now that you know?" She felt the Doctor tense.

Davexil keened again, the sound less threatening without the armor. He looked at the Doctor and Rose could feel her friend's tension increasing through their joined hands. Davexil let out a huff of air in resignation. "No, Rose Tyler. I will not." He looked back at her, his face grim. "You are bound to the last Time Lord. He has suffered enough already. I will not be the cause of more pain to a man that has endured such a large quantity already." Davexil sat back down in his seat and steepled his fingers in front of him, resting his elbows on the control panel. "Your people were cursed, Doctor. Thirteen lives, countless centuries of living. My people are like the humans, short lived in comparison. I think we are the fortunate ones. Only so much suffering can be had in the years we walk the stars, but you, you have a limitless capacity for both joy and pain. I think..." Davexil nodded to himself. "I think that you, Time Lord, have known one far more than the other."

Davexil smirked and clapped his hands. "So be it. As the last remaining member of my family unit, I waive the extradition of Rose Tyler, former human, and leave her to the justice of her kind. Seeing as the Time Lord known as the Doctor is the only one even close to her kind, I leave her punishment to him." Davexil then hissed and narrowed his eyes. "However, I do banish both of you from my universe. I do not wish to see you in my home again. I will confer with you, Doctor, over what we have discussed by transmission only. I am far more understanding than many others will be. We do not have many ships yet capable of this journey. As long as you do not enter our universe you should be safe. By the time other ships have been built, we may hope that their anger will have cooled."

Rose nodded. "Thank you." The Doctor started to say something, but wisely closed is mouth and nodded his agreement with Rose.

The screen blanked out leaving the Doctor and Rose still holding hands in the now silent console room.


	10. Empty Echoes

Rose laid the Doctor's book down on her bed and frowned

Rose laid the Doctor's book down on her bed and frowned. It really wasn't much of a help. She'd gotten more questions than answers from the text. Was she going to develop a Time Sense? How _exactly_ did the respiratory bi-pass work – how in the universes could it be "semi-voluntary," anyway? Exactly why did Gallifreyans have hair on their heads and _no where_ else? What was the evolutionary point? And really, she thought shaking her head, there wasn't a bit of useful information on how to seduce a Time Lord or what exactly would happen if you managed it.

Rose eyed the book suspiciously and nudged it with her toe. What use was a biology book that had only three pages on reproduction? Three pages! Granted, humans were sex obsessed, but this was going a little overboard on the whole "higher species" thing. There'd been a nice long chapter on those Looms the Doctor had talked about – details on the genetic sampling, the computer program for mate selection, the process of speed aging and a small note about incorporation of "lesser species" into the Looms to "indulge the wayward among us." But only three pages on the actual biological and natural reproductive impulses of the species.

Rose flopped backward on her bed, nearly hitting her head on the headboard. Three pages. She'd read them first, nearly a week ago, when the Doctor had first given her the heavy tome. She'd figured there was more, never dreamed she'd finish the whole bloody book and still not understand what was happening. She' d managed to piece together only a sketchy outline of what was really going on, and that was more from watching the Doctor than from reading those three bloody pages.

Observation One: The food fetish the Doctor had introduced Rose to was only the tip of the iceberg. The book quite clearly spelled out that part. The Gallifreyan tongue was able to catalog information at a molecular level, even so far as sub-atomic in some individuals. This, Rose had finally managed to figure out after hours of digging in the fine print, was some sort of mating safe guard. Since Gallifreyans regenerated they couldn't be sure exactly who anyone was. Historically, this had created a little problem. One did not want to end up accidentally mating with one's parent or sibling or offspring... So they had adapted the ability to do on the spot genetic testing to make sure inbreeding did not take place. Eventually, over time, this sense had evolved to include more information, such as general health, hormone levels, family background. All sorts of personal information was coded into the DNA and could be read by a special decoder tongue swipe.

When the Looms were invented this little evolutionary development was abandoned and the only "modern" repercussion was the grey mush the Doctor had mentioned as the main food consumed on the planet. The Doctor, however, had resurrected it, taking the ability to a new level and figuring out that it was good for on the fly substance analysis of just about anything, from oil on walls to blood samples. No matter how you looked at it, the Doctor was weird by human _and_ Gallifreyan standards. Only the Doctor would take a sexual function and use it to do forensics.

Rose groaned and hid her face behind her hands. The book made it sound very clinical. One lick to find out all sorts of nifty information. Reading between the lines Rose had quickly figured out that this wasn't something people did in public. She'd known that when she'd cheekily confronted the Doctor in the console room. So, as far as Observation One was concerned, she and the Doctor had already done something intimate. How intimate Rose wasn't quite sure, but the Doctor seemed to be very embarrassed by it and somewhat ashamed. It reminded her strongly of her first experience with a boy's hand down her bra. He'd been shocked and terrified seconds later, unsure what to do. He'd jumped off her mother's couch and been out the door ten seconds later. He never did talk to her again at school – he could only stammer and blush. Rose had been mortified at the time, but in hindsight it was hilarious. The Doctor was behaving only slightly better.

Observation Two:

Equipment wise, things appeared to be pretty much the same for both species. Rose had carefully looked at the anatomical drawings and couldn't really see much of a difference. There was a vague mention of some sort of "prong" that was to "increase the likelihood of conception in the pre-historic Gallifreyan." Rose wasn't quite sure if that was a euphemism for the actual male organ or something else. They hadn't thought to include detailed drawings of either gender's more _private parts_, considering them "obsolete". Having undressed an injured Doctor more than once, Rose was pretty sure he was close to bog standard down there, but she wasn't exactly happy not to have confirmation.

Observation Three:

Her body wasn't the same and not about to respond as she remembered.

The last one was the deal breaker for Rose. She wasn't a stranger to attraction. She'd never been a prude herself, if not quite up to Jack's standards of open mindedness and _flexibility_. Only thing was, new Rose didn't seem to have the same set of rules and without them she wasn't sure what to do or what she even wanted.

She'd tried a little _self exploration_ pretty quickly after the change. Rose didn't want to have any surprises in that category later on. She felt pretty much the same, all the same external parts and all. Only, no matter what she never got aroused. It was quite frustrating. Not even a little quiver, not with her favorite smutty romance books, her trusty cuddle pillow, or even her little battery operated friends.

The book wasn't any help. Seems Gallifreyans didn't condone self amusement, no surprise there. The Doctor's blushing commentary the week before and his confession to being a near virgin made it clear. His people were very,_ very_ prudish. Evidently they were also either incapable of arousal as she knew it or incapable of doing it alone. The book clearly stated that the female body secreted a substance that allowed for painless penetration. Theatrically, Rose mused, nothing should have changed. Only it plainly had.

For a while Rose thought she might be broken. Then, they'd visited a planet in the middle of a rainstorm. One glimpse of a drenching wet Doctor looking like a drowned puppy and her chest had tightened and she'd had to force herself not to make that purring sound. When she'd gotten back to her room her knickers were soaked, and not from the rain.

Rose had then started to catalogue her physical reactions. Old vs. new. She'd even gone so far as to make a nice neat little chart.

It had been a while since Rose had actively contemplated her body's response to lust, but she remembered what the Doctor use to inspire in her. Her heart would start to flutter and her breath would hitch. She'd catch a glimpse of him or a hint of his scent and that night she'd lie in her bed and think about what it would be like to have him next to her, just touching her skin – nothing sexual, she'd been afraid to even dream it. And she'd ache.

Some nights the dull throbbing in her center was so bad she'd whimper and bite her lip to try and stay quiet. She'd been sure on those long lonely nights that if he'd so much as peeked in on her she'd have died or raped him – no other options would have been possible. Her head would spin and tears would come to her eyes. She'd arch into the empty spaces around her, her hands fisting in the sheets not daring to even touch herself – needing him so badly it felt like she might die. She felt so empty, like an endless echo of herself and she _needed him inside her_. It was physical.

That was the old reaction. The new, the new wasn't something she understood. It still hurt. It still ached. She still felt _empty_. Only it wasn't physical. Her nipples still hardened and her hearts now clenched in an odd syncopation. Her respiratory bi-pass would tense and she'd let out that embarrassing purr, but that was it. The old ache wasn't in her body. It was in her mind.

Rose found herself wanting desperately to reach out to him, to touch him in a fashion she knew, without those three unhelpful pages, was more intimate than human sex. Instinctively she knew that what she was aching for, what the Doctor seemed to know was inevitable, wasn't something to do lightly. The Doctor said that mental contact made them horny. That wasn't the truth – not exactly, at least not for Rose. Lack of mental contact was driving Rose insane, the absence making her hyper sensitive and perpetually wanting. It was a constant pounding _need_ like her worst nights from before magnified a hundred times. All the sexual frustration and desire she'd known as a human was compressed and amplified till it throbbed in her mind and made her knees weak.

Rose wanted the Doctor. She needed the Doctor. If his loss of weight and constant inability to meet her eye was any indication, he was in the same predicament.

The book didn't cover any of it.

There was a whole chapter on the mental telepathic abilities of the species. It seemed all of Gallifreyan had once been linked, like an almost hive mind on a subliminal level. There was an oblique reference to a bygone practice of marriage links between individuals, but the book said that wasn't _necessary_ any longer. It said that since the communal link had been developed it was no longer a _requirement_. Rose had a bad feeling what that might mean.

All this listing and cataloging wasn't helping, Rose decided with a long suffering sigh. She'd felt the TARDIS land a little while ago and, resigned to not having any answers to her questions, Rose stood up and left to find out exactly what sort of trouble the Doctor had in mind for the day.

Exactly two hours later Rose really wished she'd stayed in bed and color coded her list.

The planet was inhabited by mean tempered creatures that looked vaguely like emus only with arms and hands instead of wings. They'd not been pleased to have visitors. They'd arrested her and the Doctor and given them a rather unpleasant death sentence. A little jiggery-pokery with the sonic screwdriver had gotten them out of the cell, but not before the bird things had released the gas.

Rose's hand was firmly in the Doctor's as they ran full out for the ship. Rose realized rather quickly she wasn't breathing, but that she was still moving. It had happened as soon as the gas had hit her nose, her lungs had simply stopped drawing in air. That had been the exact moment the Doctor had pushed open the cell door, grabbed her hand, and taken off for the TARDIS.

It wasn't far, but Rose was already feeling light headed. She tried to take a breath once they'd cleared the poison gas, but nothing happened. They crashed into the doors and the Doctor unlocked them, pushing her inside. She clung to the post and tried again to breathe, no air still getting into her system, her throat feeling like it was plugged.

The Doctor didn't appear to notice. He was grinning and flipping dials. The TARDIS gave a lurch and they dematerialized. He swung around the console and skipped down the steps.

"Well, that was unexpected!" He smiled wide and ruffled his hair a little contritely. "I suppose I should have warned you they'd met me before."

Rose didn't say anything, just looked at him with panic in her eyes. She was vaguely aware that she must look a bit like a fish out of water, with her mouth gasping for air it couldn't take in, and as she sunk down to the grating she had the odd mental image of herself starting to flop around.

The Doctor gaped at her for a moment before quickly falling to the ground next to her.

"Rose," He touched her hand and she frantically grabbed his, still struggling to inhale and not succeeding, hysteria beginning to set in. "ROSE!" He shouted her name and brushed her hair away from her face. "Breathe, Rose." His eyes were large as he gazed down at her. "The gas is gone, you can breathe now. It's normal, you're okay."

Panic had fully set in and Rose could barely make out his words, her fear making everything worse. She needed air, and badly. It had been almost 15 min since her last breath, and most of the time had been spent running. The Doctor could go for an hour without air but her vision was starting to go black. Her panic making her hearts work faster and using up what oxygen she had in her system rapidly.

"Rose, it's your respiratory bypass." The Doctor shook her a tiny bit trying to get her to look at him. "It kicked in when they released the gas. You have to relax, Rose. Let your body work." Her eyes were starting to roll up into her head and it was the Doctor's turn to start panicking. "Rose, you have to relax!"

Rose couldn't hear him anymore, there was a constant ringing in her ears and the console room had faded to darkness. She was still gulping, struggling to try and force air into her lungs and it wasn't working. Her head was pounding, and then suddenly it was like a damn burst.

The Doctor. He was in her head. She could feel his fingers on her temple and she could _feel_ him in her mind like a blast of tepid air. It was like his hand reached out and flipped a switch in her chest and suddenly she was breathing again, air rushing into her lungs, her vision clearing.

When she finally stopped hyperventilating, she realized she was in his lap and the Doctor was crying and rocking her back and forth, one hand still at her temple. His presence was still hovering in her mind and she could _feel_ his fear. Rose closed her eyes and let herself swim in his presence.

_Rose, I almost lost you!_ The Doctor's mind screamed at her.

_What happened?_ Rose shivered in his arms and clutched weakly at his jacket.

The Doctor's entire frame trembled. _You didn't know how to work your respiratory system, Rose. You almost died! I..._ the Doctor's mental voice gave what felt like a sob and Rose's hearts thudded heavily. _It should have been instinctive, but you didn't seem to be able..._

Rose hugged him tighter. _My body changed, Doctor, but in my mind I'm still a human. Evidently I didn't get an instinctual instruction manual with the upgrade_.

The Doctor choked and let out a startled laugh, hugging her tighter. _I had to force you to breathe!_

_Thanks?_ Rose offered mentally and the Doctor snorted, not letting her go.

_Don't thank me yet, Rose._ The Doctor pulled back to look her in the eye and Rose could see and feel his trepidation. _I'm afraid that in order to do it, I had to..._

Rose closed her eyes briefly before opening them to gaze into the depths of his brown ones. _You linked us. We're effectively married aren't we?_

The Doctor didn't answer, he just pulled her closer and Rose shivered with what she realized much to her shame was relief. Finally, her mind wasn't empty.


	11. Truths

The Doctor clutched Rose tightly, his hand finally drifting away from her temple to wrap around her even more securely

_A/N: K, so this was supposed to be only 10 chapters. It's now looking like 13. For some reason Rose and the Doctor just refuse to jump into the damn sack! I mean, they just keep talking and talking and talking... _

_All those centuries have made them mature and relationship oriented. They keep trying to work out their problems rather than drowning them in lust filled passion. Damn them._

The Doctor clutched Rose tightly, his hand finally drifting away from her temple to allow him to wrap his arms around her even more securely. /_Oh, Rose, I'm so sorry_!/

Rose didn't say anything, she just held him tightly for a long while, gently rocking him back and forth in an attempt to calm him down. The Doctor could feel her thoughts swirling in her mind, her still remarkably human mind. He could feel her two hearts thumping in her chest and yet, the Doctor swallowed thickly, she was so human. She didn't understand. Biologically she had changed, but her mind hadn't. She couldn't control her respiratory system, she couldn't feel Time, and she couldn't understand what was happening.

"Then explain it to me." Rose pulled back and forced his chin around, making him look at her. "You're thinking I don't understand what's going on. You think I'm somehow in danger and I don't even know it. You think you've violated me." Rose's eyes hardened just a little. "Alright, Doctor. I can sense your thoughts and you can mine. But you're right; I don't understand what's happening. Your book wasn't exactly a wealth of information, so you'd better start filling in the blanks."

The Doctor cringed and his mind curled in on itself in shame and fear. Rose winced and shook her head at him, sensing his emotions. "What the hell is the matter?" She asked quietly, still holding his chin and forcing him to maintain eye contact. "What is it about this…" She paused and huffed loudly, "…this situation that's got you so upset?" Rose gave him a gentle smile before letting go of his chin. "From where I'm sitting you haven't done a thing to me I haven't wanted. I don't understand this link you've created, I'll give you that, but to be honest we both knew it was only a matter of time. I did manage to pick _that_ up from that moldy old book."

The Doctor couldn't meet her eye and instead stared at the Time Rotor. "I don't know where to begin." He sighed heavily and put his head in his hands. "I don't talk about things like this, Rose. In all the time we've traveled together, before Canary Warf and since, I've never been good at talking about personal matters." The Doctor felt his hearts shudder at the thought and heard Rose snort. Her amusement and mingled frustration was filtering across their new link and the Doctor had to close his eyes to process it. "I…" he took a shuddering breath. "I told you that my people didn't…" He opened his eyes and forced himself to look at her. "We didn't talk to one another like you humans. We never shared feelings or emotions verbally or mentally – we tried to suppress them, actually. Between very close friends and family there was a little direct empathic exchange but it was minimal." Rose's eyes widened as the Doctor's shame filtered through the link and he tried to smile at her, knowing she was sensing everything he was going through. "Yes, Rose. I'm ashamed. I'm not supposed to love you. I'm not supposed to want your company, or any company. I'm not supposed to need…" He trailed off and again closed his eyes. "I'm not supposed to need people. Gallifrey…"

Rose interrupted him with a crushing hug. Her eyes were moist with tears. "Oh Doctor!" She reached a hand up to cup his cheek. "You don't need to be ashamed! What kind of life it is it you don't need people!"

The Doctor could feel her worry for him and her unashamed love for him. It was sharp and painful in his mind, slicing away at him, demanding yet soothing, and it confused him. Why didn't she understand? What they were doing, it was repulsive and wrong and...

"I…" The Doctor couldn't take it anymore. He stood up quickly, knocking Rose backwards with a startled yip. He reached down and grabbed her hand pulling her to her feet. "Come with me. I need to think…" He pulled her quickly down the hall towards a section of the TARDIS Rose had never seen.

He needed the Zero Room. He needed a place to think where he couldn't feel Rose all around him, in his head and filling all his senses. They needed to talk and there was no way he could get through it if she was there, constantly reading his emotions and trying to comfort him. There couldn't be any comfort for this. He didn't deserve it, and once she knew the truth… The Doctor couldn't imagine what it would be like to feel her revulsion through the link. He doubted he'd survive it.

The Zero Room wasn't a place he liked to go often. In fact, he'd almost not rebuilt it after it had been spaced so long ago, but since the TARDIS would be able to dampen Rose's connection to him in the room, for the moment he was ecstatic it was there. It was a temporary fix, but the Doctor wasn't in the mood to be picky.

He could feel Rose's confusion as he pulled her down the hallway. She could hear every thought that was flying around in his head and for some reason it didn't seem to disturb her. That in and of itself was troubling. He rarely understand what was going on in his head and it usually scared the living daylights out him when he did. Rose shouldn't be _basking_ in it!

The Doctor was almost running by the time he finally found the door. He practically shoved Rose in and slammed the door shut behind them with an ominous clang. Without warning the connection cut and Rose gasped in pain before sinking to the floor, one hand pressed against her temple. The Doctor felt a sudden emptiness in his mind too and it hurt, but he suppressed the ache and instead slowly knelt down across from Rose and waited till she stopped hissing in pain to reach for her hands.

"Okay, we can talk now."

Rose eyed him suspiciously, her eyes still showing traces of pain. "What did you do?"

The Doctor let go of her hands and rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't do anything. This is the Zero room. It's the center of the TARDIS. She isolates this room from all outside elements. It also suppresses all telepathic abilities." He smiled slightly. "Normally I use this room when I need to recuperate from something really nasty or a bad regeneration. It's like the Gallifreyan version of a sensory deprivation tank."

Rose nodded slowly. "Alright then. I take it you brought us here to keep me out of your head."

"Yes." The Doctor took in Rose's rather angry expression and quickly backpedaled. "No. I mean... I brought us here to keep us out of each other's heads." He nodded frantically to emphasis the point.

Rose crossed her arms and glared. "We can't stay in here forever."

"No." The Doctor sighed and scooted around to lean against the wall, watching Rose out of the corner of his eye. "No, we can't. But we need to talk and I need to explain a few things and I'd rather do it without you poking about in my head distracting me."

Rose snorted and shuffled around to other side of the room, mirroring the Doctor's position against the wall. "You'd better start explaining." She rolled her eyes at him as he hesitated. "And make it good."

The Doctor really didn't know where to begin. "Was the book really that bad?"

Rose laughed and banged her head back against the wall. "Bad? It didn't have anything useful in at all! I mean, unless I'm planning on dissecting myself it really wasn't all that informative. Two hearts, check. Respiratory system, check but no clue how to use. Time Sense, evidently missing – making me a no-go on the Time Lord career path. Beyond that, it's a door stop." Rose eyed the Doctor for a reaction and he couldn't help grinning.

"I wouldn't discount your Time Sense entirely. You're still getting use to the new body. In a natural Gallifreyan the Time Sense can take several decades to develop fully – although it's usually present in some form at around 10 months. Of course, not all of us have it and only those that did – and strongly – could even apply to the Academy and attempt to become Time Lords."

Rose snorted. "It's rather a non-issue, Doctor. I'm not going to miss something I never had and besides, it's not like I can go to the Academy anyway. Wouldn't want to, even if it was an option. I get the impression I'd stick out like a sore thumb."

"Oh definitely." The Doctor felt a pang of regret but tried to keep the smile on his face. He knew Rose would see right through it. She would know how much it hurt to talk about Gallifrey. But he needed to. He had to at least try and explain.

"My home world wasn't like anywhere else in the multi-verse, Rose. We had the most incredible red grass that grew all over the place. And the trees! Oh, I wish you could have seen the trees. They were silver and they'd make this tinkling sound in the wind, like Earth wind-chimes. I miss the colors most of all I think." The Doctor closed his eyes and leaned his head back, letting the story unwind itself from the depths of memory.

"For humans, green is the color of life. Red is scary, it means danger and blood and death. On Gallifrey red meant life and growth and potential. Green was a warning color, a sign of danger. Blue was for death. We had a thousand shades of silver, Rose. Each one a color in and of itself, with a name and a meaning. I can't translate them into English and you'd have to see each, experience it with all your senses to understand, but I miss the colors." He sighed and relaxed slightly as Rose moved over next to him, her head resting on his shoulder in an attempt to bring comfort. He wrapped an arm around her and buried his nose in her hair and reached for the last shred of courage he had in order to continue.

"We had rituals for everything. Ceremonies for our ceremonies. We'd prescribed and ordered and regulated every moment of everyday. We'd narrowed our existence down to a single purpose – observation and observation alone. Time Lords were the elite. We were the rulers and the guardians of Gallifrey and the Vortex. There were far more Gallifreyans than there were Time Lords, of course. If you didn't make it into one of the Academies you became an Outsider and were forced to live outside the cities and scrape out an existence without the benefit of Time Lord technology. There were different Academies for different paths, I chosen for the Time Academy, as you can probably guess. Each Academy had a different social rank, Time Lords on top. You could almost call it a caste system. I hated it.

"I never fit in. My mother was human you see. I was one of the few "mixed" children ever made. When I was eight I was taken with the other children and made to look into the Untempered Schism. It was a ritual that helped determine what path we would all take. I failed the test, Rose." The Doctor opened his eyes and looked at her before closing them again and sighing. "My father had to call in every favor he could to get them to still admit me to the Academy after that. I'd run away, you see. I'd looked into the Schism and saw the Vortex and I ran."

"But you got in, right?" Rose asked quietly, gently squeezing his hand.

"Yup. I got in. I studied hard and I tried, Rose. I really did try to fit in. You have no idea how pompous and hypocritical they all were!" The Doctor frowned. "They saw all other life forms as inferior. Only Gallifreyans were worthy and 'right'. Only the Time Lords were wise enough to use the Vortex. We thought we were the chosen of Time. We were wrong. There's no such thing."

The Doctor caught Rose's eye and took a deep breath to steady himself. "I'm not really a Time Lord, Rose. I left the Academy only half way through. I stole the TARDIS and fled Gallifrey. I spent centuries on the run from my own people. Eventually they gave me the title in return for my help, but they only thought of it as honorary. They even killed me once, put me on trial. Even made me President to try and force me to change and meet their way of thinking, chaining me to Gallifrey and all the pomp and circumstance hoping it would force me back into the fold. Didn't work, obviously, but it did give me a chance to corrupt a few young and impressionable minds before I managed to weasel out of it." He waited, searching her face to see her reaction.

Rose's eyebrow quirked in question. She raised a hand to her mouth and the Doctor thought for a moment she was shocked until a harsh laugh burst out of her and she doubled over, clutching her stomach and laughing so hard tears were starting to form in her eyes. "Here I thought I was the only drop-out on board!" She laughed so hard she snorted and that caused her to laugh even more. "Well, that explains your driving then."

"Hey!" The Doctor couldn't help grinning at her antics. "I'm confessing my deepest secrets here. You could at least have some decorum."

"Me, decorum?" Rose snorted again and lightly slapped his arm before settling back against him. "Alright. So, if I'm following you on this, you ran away from home because you didn't fit in with a bunch of snotty elitists and didn't fancy becoming…" Rose frowned while trying to think of the word. "…Outsider? Is that what you called them?"

"Yes." The Doctor nodded. "The Council would never have given me a TARDIS of my own. My ideas were too radical. I wanted to explore and see things first hand. I wanted to get to know people of every species up close. I wanted to know what it was like to dance the Limbo and play bottchi ball and a million other silly little things that they just couldn't abide. So when I had the chance I stole the TARDIS and made for the metaphorical hills. I thought at the time that I'd never see Gallifrey again. I didn't care." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "I was a fool. I didn't know enough then to appreciate what I was leaving behind. I never did, not until it was gone."

He took Rose's hand and held it tightly, close to his chest. "I'm telling you all this so you have some basis for what I'm about to try and explain." The Doctor turned and looked at Rose, his pain clear in his eyes. "I really don't how to explain it, Rose. I'm not a normal Time Lord or Gallifreyan. The way I behave, the way I am with you, it's abnormal for my species. I'm a bit of a freak actually."

Rose smiled softly. "Tell me something I don't know." She squeezed his hand and twisted a bit to reach her free hand out to tweak the lapel of his pin stripes.

The Doctor chuckled. "There were others that were sort of like me, outcasts the lot of us. We all ended up leaving Gallifrey, traveling and exploring. I've met a few others on Earth, as a matter of fact. I think we're attracted to your species and all the chaos you create. My father must have been like me too, otherwise he would never have fallen in love – especially not with a human. But I never really got to know him. He died when I was still terribly young and it really wouldn't have mattered much. Gallifreyan children, at least potential Time Lord children, weren't raised like you humans. We were separated from our families very early and raised communally. Very few Time Lords ever got involved with someone the way my parents did anyway. With the Looms being the sole source of reproduction it wasn't necessary. You just donate a little DNA and the computer matches it with another DNA sample and you're a parent in absentia."

Rose frowned. "So, your parents, how did that work?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Two DNA samples and a talk with the technician on duty. I suppose they could have gone the natural route, but…" the Doctor turned a little pink. "I don't think they ever actually…"

Rose couldn't help blushing a bit herself. "So, basically, your father falls in love with a human. Wants a child with her, for whatever reason, so he takes her to Gallifrey and makes a test tube baby that they don't even get to raise and they never _danced!"_

"Time Lords never dance." The Doctor sighed. "That's what I'm trying to explain here, Rose. That's why the book wasn't all that helpful. Looms have been used exclusively on Gallifrey for Time Lord reproduction, and nearly all Gallifreyan reproduction, since before Rassilon, since before we had the Vortex and before we were actually Time Lords. I've lived long enough and been enough of a rebel that I've managed to piece together a bit of the lost history, but I never figured I'd have a reason or a desire to actually apply it. It was so far taboo that I'm sure half the planet didn't even know it was an option."

Rose blinked at him in shock. "You have got to be kidding me. I mean, biologically I've changed into….well a female you. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here by saying we're both experiencing some serious sexual tension and have since before my little DNA acrobatics. How could the whole planet have been oblivious to this? I mean, if it was bred out we wouldn't be where we are now, right?"

The Doctor shook his head no. "You're forgetting the most important fact in all this. There aren't any others. It's just you and me. What kept all those desires suppressed, what allowed for the nearly homogeneous society on Gallifrey was the minor telepathic link the entire species shared. It wasn't much, more a sense of never being alone than anything else, but it satisfied the primal need for companionship inherent in nearly all species."

The Doctor sighed. "The link was genetically engineered to insure there wasn't a need for…" Here the Doctor knew things were going to get tricky. "They made the species wide low level telepathic link so there wouldn't be a need for one-to-one links like what we now have. Without the others I'm reverting back to pre-historic desires, mainly the imperative to share a telepathic link with a mate." He looked down in shame.

Rose's brow crinkled in thought. "So, because there aren't any more Gallifreyans to keep your mind occupied, you've been…"

"I've been drifting, Rose. It was worse in my 9th form. I…I needed you so badly then. I never entered your mind, but just having another living thing on the ship with me, just catching a few random stray thoughts…" The Doctor's voice broke. "Imagine loosing your sense of smell and touch and taste and sound, all at once. Gone. You're left floating in darkness, your eyes frantically looking for some way to connect with the world like you use to, only you can't. I was born with that telepathic link, Rose. I never thought about it. It was just there, like your senses are. When…" He had to pause again to collect himself. "When Gallifrey was lost, that connection broke. That's what caused my regeneration. My mind literally died with them, pulled into the abyss. I'm still not sure how I came back. It's probably because I am half human. That part of me was able to survive having the link severed." He looked down at the floor. "For a long time I wished I had stayed dead. The silence, it…it has a sound, Rose. It's fuzzy and inky and it clings and scrapes and pulls and tears and…it's like the worse migraine imaginable and it never stops."

The Doctor looked up at her and saw a hint of understanding in her eyes. "Gallifreyans are not meant to be alone, Rose. We always had each other. Prehistorically we had one-to-one links and later the low level species link, but never were we alone."

"And you've been alone for a very long time." Rose wiped a tear away from her face and swallowed thickly. "I…I felt like my head was echoing it was so empty after the TARDIS helped me to reach you. I didn't know what was going on, but it has been horrible. How did you stand it?"

The Doctor shivered. "I didn't. Rose, I went a little insane for a while. There were times, in my last body especially, when it was so bad I just laid down in the TARDIS and tried with all my might to will myself to die right there. I…I took stupid risks and I think, deep down, I wanted to fail, to end it. When you saved me in the basement that first day, I hated you for a little while. I really did. Then, then you touched me. You touched me and I felt – something. On the edges of my mind I felt a whisper of a touch. I think you had a bit of telepathic potential, not enough to do anything with mind you and since you were human a proper link would have been impossible, but it was enough to trigger a response in me. That's why I came back and asked you the second time. I'd never done that before, but I couldn't take the silence anymore." The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, feeling guilty after his confession.

Rose leaned back against the wall, separating herself from the Doctor's side. She sucked her bottom lip in and chewed a bit on it in thought. "I still don't get it." She turned to look at the Doctor, confusion making her brow knit. "I think I understand how you're a little different than the average Gallifreyan, more adventurous and all that. I see how a society could view emotional and physical intimacy as a negative distraction." She frowned and shrugged. "What I don't get is how a telepathic species that's linked even a little bit could so thoroughly abandon the idea of companionship. I mean, of all species to need it, a telepathic species would be at the top of the list."

The Doctor played with a string off his sock. "You've seen me as the Oncoming Storm, Rose." He looked up at her, his eyes dark with past memories and regrets. "A Time Lord is trained to be dispassionate, to dispense justice swiftly and without mercy. We are schooled to lack empathy, to be calculating and detached. The only companionship we should desire is the TARDIS we are given and Gallifrey itself. We are supposed to be above all other needs and desires, more so than even a regular Gallifreyan. It's an ideal that few attained, but society demanded we at least present the image of. I failed, my granddaughter failed, my father failed..." The Doctor closed his eyes and opened them up again, a hint of the Storm flickering in their depths. "Many many Time Lords failed, Rose. Most died or went mad. Some, like an old friend of mine, turned evil and power mad. For all I miss it, Gallifrey was deeply flawed. Sometimes, in my grief, I forget that fact. I forget what they did to me, to themselves. They paid the ultimate price for their hubris."

"So why are you ashamed that you didn't reach that level of dispassion?" Rose asked softly, reaching out to take his hand back in hers. "You've admitted that you've spent your life running from them, challenging their ideals. So why are you ashamed now? You have a chance here, Doctor. You can be _yourself_ without worrying what they think or what they might do to you. You are the last Time Lord, whether you got your diploma or not. You can define what that means for yourself."

The Doctor blinked slowly. "Rose, I'm ashamed because...because I'm dragging you into this with me. I'm too weak, too needy. I linked us at the highest level. We'll never be able to be separated. It's likely that when my last regeneration is gone my consciousness will merge with yours instead of dying off." The Doctor turned red. "And I want things, Rose. I've never _wanted_ before. I can't ask you to lower yourself to that."

"Lower myself?" Rose's mouth hung open. "Hello! Human over here! Why in hell's name would I think _anything_ you're talking about is lowering myself?" Rose shook her head. "I _want_ to, Doctor. That's nothing to be ashamed of."

"But I'm not human, Rose. And now neither are you."

Rose snorted. "Still human in my mind, Doctor. And from what you've just told me, you are part human too. Maybe..." She trailed off looking suddenly uncomfortable. "Maybe the half of you that believed what the other Time Lords tried to teach you died with them, Doctor. Maybe...maybe you should let it rest."


	12. Rose Tints My World

A/N: Bonus points to anyone that can tell me where I got the chapter title!

Rose held her breath as the Doctor's eyes widened at her statement. He looked at her for a long unblinking moment then lowered his head to hide his expression. Still he was silent.

Rose let out her breath in a rush and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes to wait. The Doctor had a lot to think about. Rose had to admit, if only privately, that the situation did warrant some careful consideration. She'd managed to hide her own trepidation from the Doctor in order to keep him from getting even more upset, and she silently thanked the TARDIS for the Zero Room. Becoming permanently mentally bonded to someone wasn't something you could be completely prepared for, no matter the quality of the reading material beforehand.

Rose let out a slow breath through her nose. She wasn't scared or upset, really. The idea was... intriguing. Rose was self-aware enough to know she was naturally a bit insecure and the thought of having a permanent, never-going-to-be-broken-even-in-death link to the only person she'd ever loved with all her being was sort of comforting. The Doctor could never leave her off somewhere like he had with Sarah-Jane. The Doctor could never blow her off in favor of some French whore. He couldn't avoid her for weeks on end when they'd had an argument. He could never leave her.

She was tired of being alone. She had been tired of it when she was 19 and he'd asked her to take the ride of her life in a sentient blue box. She'd been tired of it when she'd cried herself to sleep next to the brand new body of her best friend who she'd just watched blow up in yellow sparkles. She'd been tired of it when she got trapped in an alternate universe with no way back to the person and the life she loved. She'd been tired of it when she got diagnosed with a mysterious alien cancer. She'd been tired of it when she'd held Mickey's hand and watched him die, when she'd watched her mother die, or her father, or her brother, or Garth. She'd been tired of it when she'd lain dying in her hospital bed so drugged up she'd barely recognized the Doctor when he arrived.

This...link thing. It would mean she'd never be alone again. Not only could the Doctor never leave her, she could never leave him. She wouldn't have to feel quite so guilty the next time she almost got killed on some planet since the Doctor was sure that if either of them really died they'd just end up in the other's head. She wouldn't have to worry if they got separated in a market in the year 230,0979. She would never have to wake up terrified from another dream where the Doctor cried out for her and she couldn't answer. She couldn't fail him with her mortality. Of course, with her new found regenerative abilities that was less of a concern, but still...the link was a lovely little backup.

Of course, there were downsides. Rose sighed. How far did the link go? Could they block parts of it? Would she be able to retain her own thoughts, her sense of self? Or would they eventually merge to the point where it was Doctor/Rose, two bodies but only one mind?

Rose didn't have the heart to even ask. It wasn't like the Doctor could change it. This whole situation wasn't his fault.

Rose had felt the need for mental contact herself; she'd experience the echoing silence and the physical press of the emptiness. She had known this was coming. It was natural - if unfamiliar. The knowledge that the Doctor wasn't any more experienced in this than she was put them on an even playing field for once. Both of them were treading new and unexplored territory. Both of them only had a vague idea of what to expect from this link. After all, they were the first Gallifreyans to have one since the dawn of their recorded history!

Rose opened her eyes and peeked at the Doctor. He was still bent over with his head nearly touching his knees, deep in thought.

It didn't make sense for him to feel guilty. Rose turned her head a bit to stare at him. He always acted as though he carried the weight of the universe on his shoulders, but it wasn't always his fault. Rose nearly snorted. The Doctor thought he'd violated her by forming the link. Logically, she could see why, but she really didn't agree. The link was natural for a Gallifreyan. She was now Gallifreyan, one of the last two in existence. Like a math equation, there was only one right outcome.

Maybe it was too much Star Trek as a kid. Maybe it all came down to her long standing Spock obsession. Whatever it was, Rose just didn't find the idea of being linked all that disturbing. She'd even sort of fantasized about something like this a few times. Back before she'd traveled with the Doctor it had been vague Trek fueled improbable scenarios. Later it had been more realistic Doctor centered what-does-it-mean-he's-a-telepath daydreams. Regardless, Rose was cautiously optimistic about the whole situation.

The Doctor still looked like he'd gotten word Reapers were on the loose again. His posture was that of total defeat. He'd curled in on himself, shoulders slumped and spine curved. Rose carefully evaluated her options, did a mental cost-benefit analysis, and reached a hand out slowly to touch his shoulder.

The Doctor jumped, his eyes darting to hers. Rose smiled at him softly, deciding to treat him as she would a frightened child - or wild animal. He could certainly be as unpredictable as one, and at the moment he was hurting, which could make him twice as dangerous.

Rose kept her hand on his shoulder and, maintaining eye contact, she reached her other hand slowly out to brush his hair back off his face. "Doctor," she kept her voice even and light, "we don't have a choice anymore. What's done is done and neither of us can undo it." Rose kept her smile gentle. "I don't think either of us wants to anyway." She gently rubbed his shoulder and lowered her other hand to grip one of his hands tightly. "We're in this together. You helped me with regeneration, I'll help you with this emotional attachment stuff, yeah? Lord knows I'm a pro at being emotional."

The Doctor couldn't help but let out a short bark of laughter at that. It sounded shrill and nervous and he winced at himself. Rose ignored it and instead took both his hands in hers and pulled him closer to her till they sat cross-legged, knee to knee and eye to eye. Her new body made them perfectly even when sitting that way and Rose wondered if that was a coincidence.

Come to think of it, her entire physical form seemed to be just what the Doctor ordered. Of course, if she'd gotten to pick out the perfect Doctor body the one she was looking at would have fit the bill as well. Maybe there was a purpose to both their regenerations? It was something to think about, but not now. Rose pushed the thought away and smiled again at her Doctor.

"This time you are the one upset and I don't know what to do about it. So you are going to have to talk to me, Doctor. It's going to take time for both of us to get used to this and come to grips with all the changes it will entail. It's going to be awkward for a while, I think."

"How can you just accept it?" The Doctor asked sharply, his eyes dancing violently in the odd reflected light of the Zero Room. "How can you just smile at me and tell me it's okay that I've done this to you? You were human, Rose. It's all you've ever known and I've taken that away from you. I took your home away, your family, and now I've taken your humanity!"

Rose laughed. She couldn't help herself, it just slipped out, spilled out of her like a waterfall and she fell forward till her head hit the Doctor's and she laughed even more. "I haven't given up anything!" She pulled back a little to shake her head at the disbelieving look on the Doctor's face. "You think too much like a scientist." She poked him in the chest and smirked. "I don't care what my DNA says I am or how many hearts I have. The physical isn't important - doesn't mean a thing in the long run. You taught me that, Doctor. Doesn't matter what body I'm in or what my species is I'm still Rose. I'm still who I am, doesn't matter if I'm human or Gallifreyan or a bloody talking trampoline, I'm still me. All those things you chalk up to my humanity?" Rose snorted. "That's just Rose. For every human you name that exemplifies what you think is 'humanity' I can name you a dozen that don't. For every Rose there's an Adam, Doctor. So you can stuff that argument."

The Doctor shook his head and glared. "Even if I bought that argument, you still gave up your family for me, your world!"

Rose almost smacked him. Her voice was decidedly cold when she answered him, her eyes piercing. "I gave up my world to save my world. I gave up _you_ to save my world and fell through a fucking void to save my world. You just gave me it back, Doctor. My family," Rose snorted. "My family's dead. My life in Pete's world, is dead. My friends are dead. I'm dead." Rose exhaled loudly and her shoulders dropped as her anger gave way to frustration. "Don't you get it? You swooped in at the perfect moment. I didn't have to leave anything behind! I was minutes from death and it was about damn time I died! At least you lost your whole world at once. I watched everything I knew and loved die slowly and painfully. I didn't have a lovely time ship either. No going back for visits or delaying the inevitable. I got that life you couldn't have, Doctor. I got to live one day after another and let me tell you, it sucked."

Rose let go of his hands and stood up, towering over the Doctor, her hands on her hips. "Let me tell you something else, you pompous, shallow _blind_ idiot! I've got nothing to loose in all this. Nothing! I've been around, I've done pretty much everything I wanted to in life. This is like some kind of bonus round, and the beautiful part is, I didn't have to give up a thing to get it." Rose rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "I took a little while to figure it out, this whole second life thing, and let me tell you it's a pretty good deal. I got to live the life you wanted me to have – the one with my family and my career, and my _humanity_. I had a _fantastic_ life, Doctor. Guess what? Now I get to do it again only this time I get what I wanted. I get a fantastic space and time machine. I get the Doctor. I get nonlinear living at the grandest scale known to the universe. I AM HAPPY!" Rose reached down and smacked him upside the head. "And I'm hungry."

With that Rose walked to the door and without a word yanked it open. Without a backward glance she left the zero room and a gaping Doctor behind.

* * *

Rose stomped her way to the galley of the TARDIS and yanked open a cupboard and grabbed the tin of biscuits. She plopped down at the table and glared at the wall.

"You're a bloody living telepathic ship. You got a clue what to do with him?"

The ship's lights dimmed a moment and Rose sighed. "Yeah, you've had to put up with him for far longer. You have my complete sympathies, old girl." Rose munched a chocolate covered biscuit and rubbed her temple. "What about this link thing? Do you have any idea how we can control it or how it works? Maybe the Doctor wouldn't be so upset if we had a little more privacy."

The shipped didn't respond in any fashion which immediately brought Rose to attention. The TARDIS couldn't lie – it was hardwired into her to be truthful. But the ship didn't _have _to answer a non-vital question if asked, only those that were life threatening or imperative to a mission. Rose's eyes narrowed in suspicion, and she looked up at the ceiling out of habit. "You do know something!" Again the ship didn't respond and Rose cursed the universe for making living ships that couldn't talk. "Alright, you got in my head once to help the Doctor. Can you get in it now and give me the basics behind this thing?"

The TARDIS again dimmed the lights, this time to almost total darkness. She left them down just long enough to express her negative answer and her sorrow for it before slowly bringing them back up.

Rose wasn't fouled. "You can do it!" She stood up and barely resisted the urge to poke her finger into the wall. Instead she put her hands on her hips and picked a random part of the bulkhead to glare at. "Don't make me get the lorry! I pried you open once, I'll do it again."

The ship shuddered and Rose kept her expression harsh. At this point she wasn't sure it was an idle threat.

It took several minutes before Rose felt a tentative sort of knocking at the edge of her mind. She let herself imagine a door which she slowly opened. Tendrils of thoughts started floating through, slowly and deliberately. It didn't feel like it had with the Doctor. There was no mad rush, no overwhelming presence. Rose concentrated on one of the tendrils and got her answer. The TARDIS was scared she would hurt Rose and was holding herself back. Her telepathy wasn't made for direct communication, only passive. The Time Lords had grown her to meet their needs but not to hold conversation. She had only attempted something like this a handful of times in her many travels, usually ending with the Doctor in med bay. The TARDIS had much to concentrate on, constantly monitoring all of time and space. Narrowing her focus enough to communicate was difficult on all those involved.

Rose pressed her hand gently to the wall and concentrated, sending her thanks and her understanding back to the TARDIS and again the lights dimmed for a moment in acknowledgment. Rose took that as her cue and concentrated on another of the tendrils. In it were glimpses of the Doctor, all the Doctors. In every life Rose saw his loneliness. In his younger years the Doctor had researched the ancient links with something close to desperation, hoping there might be a way to resurrect them. The TARDIS's memories of that time were colored with worry and fear for her temperamental Time Lord. His despair and loneliness had leached into her consciousness and distracted her from the time stream, and thus began the random unexpected trips the Doctor was famous for. The TARDIS was simply paying so much attention to him that she couldn't concentrate on her flying.

Rose reached out for a third tendril. This one gave her a sharp pain when her mind touched it and the TARDIS hummed in apology. It was another memory, this time of a young Time Lady. Rose watched her in haughty arrogance challenge the Doctor. She saw his nearly imperceptible flinch when the woman mentioned his time at the Academy. The TARDIS shared her unspoken amusement at the memory. The Doctor had exaggerated in his confession. He had finished the Academy, or close to. He'd left right before the final exams. He'd had enough points to graduate but only just and had not received formal recognition until sometime late in his first regeneration and Romana had saw fit to remind him of it. Rose watched as the two grew closer, noticed the Doctor's growing attachment to the Time Lady and the beginnings of something more on his part, then saw the hope in the Doctor's eyes die when she left.

The fourth tendril was different. It felt cold when Rose touched it and the TARDIS vibrated with trepidation. It was information on the link! Rose opened her mind to it without fully considering why the TARDIS would be reluctant to share it, and gasped in shock at what she found.

As far as the Doctor was concerned, Gallifreyan recorded history began shortly before the advent of Time technology. He knew there use to be more, records stretching back into the Gallifreyan past to a point in their development that would have mirrored Rose's experiences on Earth. According to the Academies on Gallifrey, this information had been lost around the time of Rassilon. The truth was harsher. The Council had buried the truth, scattered the records through time and space till there was no way to accurately reassemble them without the one thing they thought no one would ever have – the Eye of Harmony.

The TARDIS had taken advantage of her temporary link with the Eye when it had happened. She'd used its power to search the timelines and reassemble the lost histories, hoping that someday the Doctor would have an opportunity to use the information. What she'd found had sickened her. The TARDIS had made a choice to protect the Doctor from the truth. She had hidden her newly acquired knowledge in the deepest of her databanks, where the Doctor had no reason to look or suspect what she had done.

Rose slowly sank to the floor as the TARDIS carefully wafted painful truth after painful truth into her mind.

Gallifrey had once been like Earth. They'd had their own Dark Ages, their own Industrial Revolution. They were not always the Masters of Time, this she'd known. When their influence had grown and their technology had reached the point where they could begin to dream of someday being able to control and manipulate the very fabric of time, the rulers of Gallifrey had made a terrible choice. They had concluded it was necessary that the herd be culled and the planet be readied for their rightful place of power. They had systematically eliminated anyone on the planet that did not conform to the new ideal, carefully and secretly assassinating those that might pose a threat or notice what they were doing. Those that were now considered obsolete to the rising order were to be removed and sterilized. They would not kill them, oh no. They planned something so horrible it made Rose's stomach turn and her lonely chocolate biscuit fought its way back up her throat in long terrible heaves.

Prior to this, Gallifreyans had shared the same link she did with the Doctor. They were linked to their spouses, to their parents, to their children. They made links with friends and neighbors. It was how they formed communities and how they showed affection for others. Their language had no words for 'I love you'. It was always a warm mental brush that felt the nature of it rather than somewhat hollow words. The links were cherished and honored above all else. It was the only way they knew how to relate to each other.

Those in power feared these links. They did not want loyalties to be held to family over the new Council. Those that were no longer necessary to the new order had to be neutralized for the good of all. Families would have to be divided. Spouses separated. Children reallocated. The links would keep the populace from allowing it. With the links in place people's natural attachments to one another would make the Council's job impossible.

So the Council had used the power of their position to convince everyone of the need to form a planet wide link. They said it would increase harmony and put a final end to violence and discord. All of Gallifrey would be family. All of Gallifrey would become one. As one the people of Gallifrey would be able to rule Time itself and set an example for all others to follow – the perfect society.

The people had been drunk on their new power, convinced of their superiority in the universe. So they had agreed on this plan. They had blindly gathered in their town squares, opened their minds and let the Council's machines form the species wide link.

As soon as that new link formed the others dimmed and withered. Children wailed in the streets and grown men collapsed in fear. It was so quiet, the new link a mere echo of what old had been. It was like death had come all at once. The entire planet of Gallifrey had stood still in shock and fear, not able to relate to one another without their former bonds, barely able to tell that others still existed in their minds despite what their eyes told them. The species link only gave a shadow of company and never a voice.

The Council had won. Since nearly all attachments and all emotions, including empathy and the bonds between family members, had been governed by the old links, all such things disappeared instantly. Without _feeling_ their wife's pain, the husbands did not know they had it. Without _feeling_ their children's hunger, mothers left their children to starve.

Of course the people tried at first to reverse what they had done. The Council lied and said they were trying to find a solution. Months went by with failed attempt after failed attempt. Then years. The Looms were introduced and regulated so children could still be born and grown even though the species could no longer share love or affection or even concern. Months turned into years and somehow the people grew use to the silence. It was easier not to feel another's pain when the authorities came and took them to be sterilized. It was easier not to hear their mental screams when they were cast out of the cities into the wild lands to starve.

The Ceremonies were begun to contain the inevitable anarchy that arose when an entire species lost its ability to empathize. Control had to be maintained, the social order was paramount. So the Council regulated every detail of life. They created ceremonies and rituals to keep the population in line, to simulate what once was natural. They created punishments for disobeying the order or fighting the species link, making the old ways taboo. A Gallifreyan might no longer be able to feel his fellow's pain as if it were his own, but his personal pain was still quite apparent and the punishments harsh. The Council wiped the old ways from the history books, cleaned out the libraries and the data files and re-wrote even the present to their liking.

The Academies were formed. The hierarchy of society took shape. Only Time Lords were allowed off planet. Only those with the deepest indoctrination were allowed to leave. Only those that were so far immersed into the illusion could survive exposure to the outside. Many were still lost.

It did not take as long as one would imagine for all this to happen. A few generations, no more. A few thousand years...and even the Council forgot.

A few thousand years to design the perfect unfeeling race.

Rose pulled back from the TARDIS and let the ship slip from her mind. Rose's arms shook as she tried to pull herself up from the floor. The Time Lords and the Daleks... they were nearly the same.

Rose barely made it to the sink before she threw up, the bile catching in the back of her throat.

Finally she managed to stop. With trembling legs, Rose slowly made it to the Console Room.

"My God." She sat down heavily in the jump seat and looked at the Time Rotor. "I..." The TARDIS lights blinked in sympathy. "The Doctor, he's so different because of his mother, isn't he?"

Again Rose felt a gentle knock. This time the tendril she opened her mental door to was warm. Rose saw through the TARDIS' eyes a time from before the Doctor. The TARDIS was old and had known many Time Lords. She showed Rose the truth that the Council had not realized. Even without the links Gallifreyans were capable of compassion and love and understanding. They simply had to relearn it. That was a slow process, one that the TARDIS had watched and wondered at until she'd learned the truth. The first Time Lords to use her had been cold and dispassionate. They had gradually changed, sometimes even within regenerations, slowly becoming more and more able to _feel_. The Doctor was not alone, but his birth had made him more easily susceptible to his emotions, increasing with each regeneration. It appeared to be somewhat genetic, as well. Going back to the very first generation to be born without the personal links, the Doctor's family line had always displayed a greater propensity for empathy.

Rose backed out of the TARDIS's mind again and slumped in the jump seat, her head pounding and her chest tight. She was suddenly so tired. The lights in the console room started to blink rapidly in alarm but Rose didn't notice as she sunk into unconsciousness and fell gracelessly onto the floor, a slow trickle of blood running from the corners of her eyes and nose.

* * *

Rose hurt all over. Her first conscious thoughts were simply 'ahherhg' followed by 'owwww' and a 'sehhhsh'. She heard a sound to her left side and felt a needle prick her skin, the discomfort negligible compared to everything else. The pain receded a bit and Rose quickly realized that whatever had been in the needle must have been some sort of painkiller. She groaned out loud this time rather than in her head and was rewarded with a gentle hand on her forehead, brushing back her hair.

"Rose?" The Doctor's voice was soft and quiet as if he feared his normal volume would cause her more pain.

Rose tried to open her mouth to reply, but all that came out was an inarticulate moan.

"It's alright, Rose. I'm going to give you another injection. This one will make you sleep. Next time you wake up you shouldn't be in any pain."

Rose thought about nodding but her muscles hurt too much to even attempt it. She felt another sharp prick as a needle again entered her arm and the pain withdrew as she fell back into unconsciousness.

The next time she awoke the pain was gone, as promised. She opened her eyes slowly and blinked up at the med bay lights, her hand unconsciously fingering the cool cotton of the medical gown she'd been placed in. The Doctor was sprawled out asleep in a chair next to her bed, his tie undone and his shirt sleeves rolled up. His jacket was off and tossed carelessly over one of the empty beds. His head was tilted forwards and his hand held hers tightly. Worry lines wrinkled his brow and Rose finally had enough sense to wonder what had caused her to land in the medical bay in the first place, let alone cause the Doctor to look so concerned. Whatever it was, it had the Doctor worried, which was never a good sign.

Just as she was starting to consider how to get her hand back, so she could get up and use the restroom, the Doctor jerked awake, his eyes wide with fright. It took him a moment to realize she was awake and not in some kind of crisis. Through their link Rose could feel his frantic concern and she suddenly knew that he'd almost lost her twice since she'd collapsed, his mind reliving both experiences in the split second between sleep and awareness.

The Doctor didn't say a word, just stared at her, his eyes large and glittering. He leaned forward in the chair and with startling swiftness he grabbed her into a tight embrace, half dragging her off the bed. Rose clutched him back in turn and waited as the Doctor's breathing quickened before starting to slowly return to normal. Rose had never seen the Doctor frightened before. The thought came unbidden and tinged with what Rose was quickly realizing was the mental essence of the Doctor. She had, he thought at her, many times. The difference was the link. With the link Rose could experience his fear instead of just observing it. She'd never noticed it before since whenever the Doctor was frightened Rose was generally terrified herself.

She held him tightly until his arms started to slacken ever so slightly and Rose gently pulled back to look him in the eye. "What happened?" She asked quietly, her hand resting softly on his cheek.

The Doctor sighed and looked at her with heavy eyes. "You tried to talk to the TARDIS. It over loaded your brain and started a cascade failure in your nervous system. I...by the time I got to you both your hearts had stopped. You were seconds from starting to regenerate. I couldn't feel you in the Zero Room. The TARDIS threw the door open and started flashing her lights to get me to the Console Room. If she'd been 30 seconds slower you'd be having another new body to get use to."

"Oh." Rose took a deep breath. "Well, I guess I know not to do that again."

"Rose!" The Doctor nearly shouted. He jumped up off the chair and away from her, his feet quickly settling into a complicated pacing pattern. "What were you thinking! The TARDIS wouldn't have allowed that kind of communication unless you'd forced her. What in Rassilon's name did you do to her?"

Rose blushed and looked down. "I may have threatened her with a lorry." The Doctor didn't say anything, just fell back in the chair and put his head in his hands. Rose winced at the emotions battering at her mind and muttered a quiet apology.

When the Doctor finally looked up, his face was hard and with the voice of the Oncoming Storm he asked her, "What did you talk about?" The edge to his tone was sharp enough to slice through Rose and she flinched.

"You don't want to know." She answered quietly, somehow maintaining eye contact. "You really, really don't want to know."

It happened so quickly Rose didn't have time to react. One moment he was asking her, not very politely, what she'd been doing. The next, he was ripping through her mind like a hurricane. It hurt, and Rose cried out loudly, clutching at her head as he pried the memories from her. She tried to stop him before he reached the truth, but in the end she opened her mind wide and shoved the TARDIS born memories at him. If he wanted them so badly, he could have them.

The Doctor fell backward away from her and out of the chair. He landed hard on the decking, his eyes contorted with pain. Rose glared at him, her anger dense and palpable. How dare he? She was shaking and felt nauseated but through their accursed link she could feel his pain. Her anger seemed to evaporate next to it and in seconds she was kneeling next him, cradling him as he sobbed.

The link. It all came back to the link. The Doctor had sought the truth behind it for so long, lusted after the contact he'd heard legends of since his creation. He had found the link at long last and the truth behind it was almost too painful to bear. Rose held him close as he once again was confronted with the frightening truth. He'd been chosen to press the button that would destroy Gallifrey because he had once showed compassion to another race. Now, the last of his kind, the final terrible truth could no longer be hidden. His own people were no better than that which they fought. His whole life the Doctor had searched for somewhere, somewhen, that he could fit in, call home, belong. With Gallifrey's destruction he had allowed himself to forget that he had never belonged there. He had fooled himself into believing that even though he'd left it, he'd had at least a bit of a home on the red grass planet. It was lies, all lies. He'd never belonged anywhere. He was an abomination...

Rose felt her own tears and the Doctor's and it was too much too fast. She shuddered and somehow, instinctively, the link bloomed even greater in her mind, the TARDIS guiding it like she had when the Doctor was kidnapped. Rose was the Doctor and the Doctor was Rose and somehow between the two they merged and the new creation was more than either was alone. Their minds twined and wrapped and danced and what had been Rose became home for what was the Doctor. What was the Doctor became the home for what had been Rose. Together they made a place to belong that when apart, neither had.

The TARDIS eased out of their connection and the link flared for a long second before banking down. Rose was again herself, the Doctor again himself. The edges of the link were bright in Rose's mind, a shiny silver-like thread that the Doctor floated around. It was easy to tell what he was feeling, what he was thinking if he thought _at_ her, or if it was loud enough. Rose had her answer now. The link would never make them less than what they had been, it could only make them more. Always separate, always whole. A pure dichotomy, nature's answer perfect in practice. Their home.

Rose was so lost in her mind, figuring out the implications of it all, that she was caught completely of guard when the Doctor licked her. His tongue was wet and hot as it slid up her left cheek and curled over the cheek bone. Rose wrenched herself out of her musings to stare wide-eyed at him. He looked down quickly, his embarrassment fluttering across to her. Rose didn't stop to think about it. She couldn't let him keep feeling guilty, especially not now that they knew the truth. She reached out with both her hands and pulled his face up to look at her. She stared into his eyes for a moment, forcing her feelings across their link. She was angry he had ripped the memories from her, she was scared at what her communication with the TARDIS might have done to her, she was worried for him, and she was very, _very_ willing to forget all that for at least a little while. She smirked at his gob-smacked expression and slowly, carefully leaned forward. She ran her tongue from the tip of his chin, up and over his nose, clear into his hair line. She stopped, eyes closed, and let her new senses process the information.

They were more than compatible, she could tell. He was healthy and virile and oh so many other lovely little tidbits of data that Rose really didn't understand or care about fluttered through her mind and as she opened her eyes she almost laughed. The Doctor was watching her like he watched one of his experiments, eyes guarded and ready to flee should the beaker get ready to explode. She ran her hands away from his face and into his hair before leaning forward again to whisper, "Compatibility, check. Health, check. Link, check. So what do you suppose happens now, my Doctor?"

He shivered. His entire body shivered in her hands and Rose couldn't help the deep purr she let out at the sensation. The answering sound from his chest left her in little doubt of what he was feeling, their link dancing like silver flames between them.

Rose carefully stood up and pulled the Doctor with her. He stood next to her, his head resting on her shoulder. He was scared, she realized slowly. He wasn't only ashamed, he was downright scared. The truth of what happened to his people made him less ashamed of what he felt for her, what he had desperately wanted all his life, but it did not help the fact that he did not know what to do and he'd been educated his entire life that all this was wrong. It didn't matter that he knew the truth now, it was still ingrained into him to shun this kind of contact no matter how long he'd wanted it or that he was now trying to accept it.

The Doctor, for once, wasn't the most experienced person in the room. For once he couldn't hide it or bluff his way out, either. With link he couldn't hide anything, his entire soul laid bare.

Rose closed her eyes. /_Doctor, you have to tell me if I go to far._/ She mentally caressed his mind, running hers down his side of the link like she had her tongue over his face and his purr turned into something close to a growl. _/I'm flying on instinct here too. As we proved not so long ago, this new body didn't exactly come with an instruction manual. I'm more clueless about this than you are so I'm going to need you to.../_

The Doctor cut her off by turning his tongue to the side of her neck, the long wet muscle dipping into the hollow of her throat and then sliding back hind her ear. She purred deeply, her hands lost in his hair, gripping him and holding him in place. Rose could feel her arousal, a single bead dripping down her leg and the Doctor's hand reached under her hospital gown to capture it, his thumb rubbing her upper thigh so close and yet not actually touching the source.

She whimpered and forced the Doctor's head up so she could look him in the eye. He was still scared alright, but the Doctor had never let that stop him before. He was determined, and Rose's knees trembled at having that determination turned solely on her.

/_Doctor, I.../_ Rose swallowed thickly. /_We haven't talked about this. What this means. We're __**compatible**_._/ _Rose left that thought hanging until she saw comprehension dawn in the Doctor's eyes and his surprise across the link. _/If we keep this up..._/

/_Little Doctors and little Roses._/ The Doctor finished for her and they both gulped. Neither was exactly ready for that.

Neither had remembered in their excitement that they were on board a sentient telepathic living ship, one that happened to be experiencing a touch of voyeurism in her old age. The lights dimmed and a single spot of illumination fell on a long forgotten drawer. The Doctor eyed it carefully before slowly leaving Rose's side to open it. He choked at the contents, pulling out a shockingly pastel pink cosmetic case.

"What?" Rose asked carefully, her legs still a bit unsteady. The Doctor walked back to her and opened the case, pulling out a small ivory colored bottle.

"I'd forgotten." He looked at the bottle laying in the palm of his hand. "It was Romana's. She used to have such terrible cramps...never needed it for _this_ though." He trailed off and realization dawned as Rose gazed down at the tiny bottle.

"Gallifreyan birth control." The Doctor nodded at her and Rose snorted. "You mean with all this superior biology I can still expect bleeding and PMS?"

The Doctor grinned and bounced backward on his heels. "Not quite. Only happens once every ten of your years or so for starters. Secondly, no bleeding – waste of resources, although I expect that was at least in the book." He smirked at her and Rose shrugged. So what. She'd skipped over some bits. That was why they put an index in the bloody thing. The Doctor shook his head at her and waved the bottle tantalizingly under her nose. "This was to help with the cramping that can happen to young Time Ladies when their normal schedule is thrown out of sync due to excessive periods of Vortex travel. Romana was particularly susceptible, few actually had the problem. The treatment was a simple dose of hormone, the equivalent of..."

Rose cut him off. "Gallifreyan birth control, as I said to begin with. Can the TARDIS replicate that?" Rose eyed the bottle skeptically. "And is it still good? I mean it has been centuries hasn't it? And how long..."

The Doctor stopped her questioning with a finger held up. He slowly opened the bottle and extracted one bright red pill. He held it out to her and raised an eyebrow until she opened her mouth and the Doctor placed the pill in the center of her tongue where it fizzed and dissolved instantly on contact. Rose couldn't help running her tongue along the side of his finger before he withdrew the digit. "It should..." the Doctor's voice cracked. "it should be nearly instantly effective and fairly easy to replicate."

Rose felt a slightly flush to her cheeks and then the sensation was gone. "How long will it last?"

The Doctor blushed a bit and set the bottle and the case down on a table next to them. "You'll need to take one every time..." He trailed off and shrugged, his grin silly and shy at the same time.

Rose laughed and tugged him back into her arms. It was her turn to play with his ear, running her tongue over the shell and sucking on the lobe till he purred and cupped her bottom to pull her into closer contact. Their link flared silver between them, both feeling the other's arousal on two levels.

They fumbled their way out of the medical bay, tripping over each other until Rose's hand hit a door and she pushed it open. The Doctor was nibbling on the spot just below her ear and Rose's purr was deafening. Well, she thought, so far so good. That spot had always been rather stimulating...

Her knees hit the edge of something soft and she fell backwards onto a bed, pulling the Doctor down with her. She tipped her head back and gasped as he bit down none too gently on the side of her neck before trailing his tongue down her collar bone. His hands found the clasp to the infirmary gown and his mouth followed. Rose cried out in pleasure as his lips and tongue touched the top of her breast before he slowly pulled the nipple into his mouth. The Doctor's purr vibrated through her chest and made Rose's entire body constrict, sending her shuddering into her first orgasm in her new body. Her pleasure rippled across the link and the Doctor moaned with her. The link amplified the experience, each feeding off the other turning what would have been a small but pleasant orgasm into a full body experience.

Rose panted into the Doctor's chest, her body and mind still not grasping the use of her respiratory system. The Doctor wasn't even breathing heavy, his purr still deep and constant in his chest and Rose pulled him down, kissing him for all she was worth. She could feel him pressed hard against her thigh, his trousers masking the full feel of him. Their mutual experience didn't seem to have eased his arousal any and Rose smirked against his lips as her hands found the zipper tab and slowly dragged it down...


	13. A little longer

The Doctor shuddered as Rose's hand brushed slowly and carefully against him. He'd never been touched there, not like this. His brain was having trouble differentiating her feelings from the sensations she was causing in him, her own pleasure leaking across the link they shared and making it difficult for him to concentrate. Rose's hand got braver and she cupped him through his pants and his purr hitched.

Rose's laughter tinkled at him, both out loud and in the link. She sat up, knocking the Doctor off her, and they both shuffled for a moment till they ended up sitting on the bed facing each other, his hands still running mindlessly over every inch of her he could reach. She leaned forward, her breasts dangling temptingly between them, to whisper in his ear. "Stop thinking." She nipped his neck. "You don't need to analyze this, Doctor. We're not engaged in an experiment after all."

The Doctor's eyes fluttered shut as Rose pushed him back against the bed until she was practically lying on top of him. He was still fully dressed, but Rose's medical gown was lying discarded at the other end of the bed leaving her completely exposed. The contrast seemed to make the situation that much more whimsical and he had to remind himself repeatedly it was real. Her skin was a lovely shade of yellowish pink and the Doctor wanted nothing more than to memorize every line, every pattern. He was struggling to think clearly. He shook his head, Rose's words finally registering through the fog of their desire. "I have to think, Rose. It's what I am."

Rose sat up, straddling him, and raised an eyebrow as she stared down, her hands on either side of the Doctor's head. She smirked as his gaze dropped to her breasts and his mouth fell open a bit as he watched them sway. "My dear Doctor, you are missing the point." Rose leaned back down and licked his collar bone, making the volume of his purr kick up another notch. "This is a no-thinking activity. That's the point, really. Let go." She moved away far enough she could start undoing the buttons on his shirt, her hands dipping under the fabric to caress his chest. "Lesson number one in the Rose Tyler school of lovemaking: don't over think it."

The Doctor's eyes fluttered shut and for the first time in his life he felt his respiratory bypass fail as his breath caught. He was quickly finding himself naked, in a bed, with Rose, who was herself very very unclothed. He was dizzy before his lungs managed to leap back into shuddering action. He didn't like this, this helplessness, this confusion, this… Rose tugged at his waist and his hips automatically rose as she slid the last of his clothing off his body. He waited, but nothing happened. The link pulsed but nothing discernible came to mind, and the Doctor slowly opened his eyes.

Rose was lying next to him, propping herself up with her head on one hand. Her other arm was lazily draped over her hip and she was watching him, an amused and sympathetic look on her face.

"What?" he asked a little harshly, and Rose rolled her eyes at him. "What do you think is so funny about this?"

"You." Rose smirked and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear as he rolled on his side to face her. "You are defiantly funny, Doctor, it's why the universe fears you."

He ought to feel insulted. Somehow, though, he couldn't. He knew Rose and the amusement in her eyes wasn't at his expense, and she was so beautiful lying there. Her ginger hair was all ruffled and tangled about her like a brier bush, her eyes dancing in the dim light of the TARDIS. She was totally unashamed to be like this. Being naked didn't bother the Doctor, and Rose being naked wasn't even all that unusual given some of their previous adventures. What was so disturbing was her ability to except everything and lay all herself out for him knowing he would accept everything he found. Rose _knew_ he would never reject her for what she'd done over the 80 years they had been separated. Rose _knew_ he would never turn away from anything the link showed him she felt or thought or wanted. Rose had come to terms with everything, and he had not. He still feared what would happen if she saw him weak, if she knew everything he'd done in his long life, if she knew _him._

A slight frown formed on her perfect face and she sighed before reaching a hand slowly out to take his. "Doctor, what makes you think I don't know you?" She watched him, her eyes serious and deep, and the Doctor swallowed thickly. "I've seen you mad with anger, crushed with despair, giddy with excitement, and humble with admiration. I've seen you die and I've seen you live and I've never for a moment wanted you any way other than as you are." She leaned forward till their foreheads touched, and the Doctor let his eyes drift closed. Her breath ghosted over his face as she whispered, "I know you, Theta."

His entire body shook at the sound of a name he'd nearly forgotten. He felt the tears before they fell and it took him a long moment to realize what was happening as Rose pulled him close to her and he sobbed against her shoulder. "How?" He somehow managed to ask, his breath hitching as he clung to her.

"I carried the TARDIS, love. From time to time I remember things, little gifts she left behind for when I might need them. I've known your name since the moment the light hit me and I've never forgotten it. She reminded me again not so long ago." She pulled back from him slightly so they could see each other's faces. "You are my _Doctor_. When I think of you or see you I can only use that name. But inside, I think there is much of Theta left to you, isn't there? That's the name that carries your pain and your past." She smoothed his cheeks with her hand and through the link she did the same to his frazzled mind. "Please, love, don't question everything so much. For once, accept that something good is happening and trust in that, okay?" She smiled, and suddenly there were no more tears.

She knew his name. He wanted to tremble and smile at the same time. She knew his name. His hands buried themselves in her hair, pulling her forward so he could kissed her. She purred for him, her back arching, and he let his hands run down her sides to cup that exquisite rear end of hers and pull it sharply against him. She knew his name. She knew it, knew him, evidently knew what he was and had done, and she was still here, still purring for him and only him.

Rose broke the kiss only to run her tongue slowly up his cheek, erasing all trace of his tears, their combined purr making the bed vibrate underneath them and sent the link pulsing again in rhythm with their hearts.

They rolled, the Doctor finally above her, and he felt her pleasure at that simple fact. Her hands were everywhere on him, and they left a trail of heat behind that swirled against his skin like the Vortex outside, tangled and mystical and more unimaginably powerful. He did stop thinking then, as his head dipped and his tongue swept out to catalogue her breast. He stopped thinking as hands found the perfect places to hold her hips when his mouth started to go lower.

He vaguely knew what humans did at times like these. He knew abstractly what they would do, but there wasn't enough information for him to use his brain to solve the puzzle. Like atrophied muscles, his instincts were slowly and somewhat painfully raising to the surface, making his hearts hammer in his chest. He wanted to taste her.

She moaned as she caught the echo of that thought. The Doctor nipped at her belly button, kissed her hip, and when her legs parted for him he couldn't help but run his hand over her. He could feel her mild trepidation through the link, and he knew then she was not nearly as unashamed as she had first appeared. New body for her too, he had to remember. New species. Rose did not even have the benefit of a full set of instincts. Finally, he had the advantage again. He liked having the advantage.

Rose's body shuddered at his thoughts as they fluttered to her, and the Doctor smirked, noting how she liked it when he had the advantage, too, before he went back to examining her - intimately.

He knew she wasn't human now, but he'd still almost expected a little hair – somewhere. He wasn't disappointed so much as surprised there wasn't any as he gently stroked her thigh and barely brushed her sensitive folds. She whimpered and shifted her hips, trying to gain more contact. He tightened his one-handed grip on her, stilling her. Slowly, so slowly, he let a single finger trace the length of her opening. She was so wet for him and the smell of her desire was so thick in the air it tossed the Doctor's senses into overdrive.

When his head lowered made first contact with her, she screamed. He smiled and slowly did it again, pushing his tongue inside her just far enough to taste, sliding it out and in again, lapping at her. Her mind was a confused jumble as each sensation hit her, familiar yet different. The link provided the Doctor with a running commentary on his efforts. This new body had no clitoris, yet Rose wanted to feel his nose, possibly his old nose, rub against it, and the Doctor chuckled at her frustration. "We will just have to make do without, my Rose. Besides, what's to say you might not have something better?" His breath ghosted over her damp skin as he spoke and she shuddered again above him, her moan and her purr somehow coming out at once.

Perhaps it was his prior knowledge of their physiology, or maybe his better set of instincts, but before Rose could figure out what she wanted in this new body, he found it - a tiny raised line of muscle just an inch or so inside her that ran a ring around the entirety of her opening, the perfect depth for his tongue to tease. The perfect depth, he knew, for other parts of him to tease.

He was so hard it nearly hurt. He'd never actually felt that before, or anything like it. As each purr and moan was wrenched from Rose's throat it slammed into him through the link and he got just a bit more aroused, just a bit more ready. He didn't want to rush things; this was their first time together. He wanted to remember every detail. He slipped a finger inside Rose and at the sensation of tongue and hand together she stopped breathing for a moment, the link flared with a brilliant blinding intensity and he knew she'd come for him – her body shuddering and her mind on fire.

When she finally managed to restart her breathing she tugged at his hair, yanking him up to her. She kissed him greedily, needing to taste herself on his lips, to feel that tongue against her tongue. When they broke apart she wasted no time, shoving him back onto the bed and without warning sliding to his waist and taking him entirely into her mouth.

The Doctor thought he screamed, but the only sense he seemed to have working at the movement was touch so he wasn't quite sure. He couldn't help but arch into her and she purred around him. The effect was so staggering that the Doctor clutched at the bed sheets, twisting and writhing despite his best efforts at self control. She seemed to enjoy tormenting him, her hands forcing his hips to lie still and keeping him from choking her. He knew he didn't look or feel like a human male, but Rose didn't seem to mind. Her tongue worked inside her mouth, running along the slight ridge on the shaft, the one the Doctor suspected was made for the little line of muscle in her.

Rose purred again at the implications of his notion and released him, sliding back up his body, her tongue leaving a trail up his torso. She bit his neck, right above his pulse, and he arched into her. Not able to prolong it any longer despite his best intentions, he rolled them so he was above her again.

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes wild but she grinned at him. When she raised her hips, he slipped into her without thinking.

He was right, they fit perfectly. With each slow thrust he rubbed against Rose in just such a way that she was quickly heading towards incoherency. Their link was so open that only long experience with telepathy allowed the Doctor to tell where he ended and she began. Rose, he knew, was lost in it, and he decided he wanted her to be lost in it frequently if it would always feel this good.

Words couldn't explain it. He was in Rose, inside her in more ways than body and mind. He knew it wasn't possible, but it felt like he was in her soul. She purred and arched and moaned and begged and the Doctor answered her in kind, each thrust a little faster, a little harder.

He groaned and felt a slight twinge in his length. A wave of relief flashed though him, like unbending your leg after sitting on it only so much more intense like he'd been bent in half for eternity, only now able to stretch, and a new level of pleasure blossomed through him. Rose gasped beneath him, feeling him extending further inside her. She hissed and whimpered as this new part of him settled into place. For a moment the link backed down in the face of her discomfort and she looked at him with questioning eyes.

The Doctor stilled his movements and leaned down to kiss her gently, trying to keep control long enough to explain – or try to. This wasn't exactly his area of expertise, but while Rose knew more about human biology in these circumstances she was without any real knowledge of her new species. Even without having practical experience, the Doctor was the only one with any frame of reference. He focused on the small amount of pain she'd felt moments ago to hold his passion in check. He didn't want to hurt her. He never wanted to hurt her.

"Do you remember what you read in the book?" He asked softly as his lips left hers. "Gallifreyan males have an extra little prong on our..." He blushed and coughed slightly, which made Rose giggle at him before reaching up to brush his hair back a bit so she could see his eyes, her pain already dismissed in the face of the pleasure seeping back into her. "Anyway, that's what that is," he finished sheepishly. Rose wiggled slightly under him, a tiny grimace forming on her mouth. "Does it hurt?" He couldn't tell through the link. Rose's emotions and mind were suddenly so jumbled it was hard to tell.

She blinked slowly before answering, her voice a little unsure. "I...I don't know what it feels like. Do you..." now it was her turn to look sheepish. "Not to interrupt or anything, but what exactly are you doing in there? I mean, it doesn't hurt exactly, not since you did it, but it certainly feels...different."

The Doctor gave an experimental half thrust and Rose's eyes flew wide open and her mouth formed a silent O, and this time the Doctor was positive it wasn't in pain. "I'm inside you properly." He supplied in a cheery voice before licking her nose and grinning. "Gallifreyans are all about propriety and work ethic and all that, so I must endeavor to do this correctly. Assuming you agree to let me continue," and here he waggled his eyebrows and Rose snorted, "when I release," he turned red at that but swallowed and continued in his best lecture voice. "When I release it will be inside inside of you."

"Inside inside?" Rose frowned and wiggled again causing the Doctor to purr loudly and shut his eyes to keep himself from being distracted and losing control. "You mean..." She trailed off, not sure what he meant.

"If you were human," the Doctor hissed out, grabbing the last of his control and opening his eyes. "If you were human that little sharp pain you felt would have been me entering your cervix. Since you aren't human, that was me entering another part of you with another name that I don't want to try and translate and that I'll explain later with charts and graphs and bloody diagrams if you want, but by Rassilon, Rose, I need to..."

She cut him off by arching up again, causing him to push farther into her, and then they were done talking. The link flared back up to its previous intensity and the Doctor lost all thought as he thrust into her warmth. It may have been minutes or it might have been hours later that he felt the fire build inside his own body to match the one raging in Rose's. The pleasure increased until it felt remarkably like it did before a regeneration and then, in a flash, it burst and he came, yanking Rose with him though the link, and then the world went black.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

When they came back to consciousness the TARDIS was still humming around them the same as always, but to the Doctor the universe suddenly seemed a little brighter. The link was quiet as he gazed at Rose lying beside him, her hair a wild frightful mess and her eyes bright and happy as she looked back at him. He could feel that she was content but nothing more. He didn't need to worry, he realized. The link was theirs to control, not the other way around. They could make this work. They could make it all work. He smiled gently and reached a hand out to cup her cheek. "Hello there."

"Hello." She smiled back and leaned into his touch before stretching like a cat, which had the Doctor's gaze sliding down to linger over her curves. "How long were we out?" she asked, as she cuddled back up to him.

The Doctor checked his time sense. "Oh, about 23 hours or so, if you start counting from when we left the infirmary."

"Twenty-three hours!" Rose screeched, and backed quickly away from him, sitting up. "You mean we slept for nearly an entire day?"

The Doctor took a moment to stretch himself before sitting up and shrugging. "Actually, we were only unconscious for about 5 or so."

"Only 5..." Rose's eyes went large. "You mean, we just...for 18...hours!" Her voice squeaked on the last word.

He frowned. "I take it that's unusual for humans?"

Rose threw herself backwards landing with a soft plop in the pillows. "Unusual, he asks." She turned her head to look at him and took his offered hand tightly in hers. "Doctor, if Earth ever finds out you have that kind of stamina, women the entire planet over will be plotting ways to kidnap you. A good number of the men, too, I'd bet."

He felt a twinge in his new favorite body part at the tone of Rose's voice. "Human males not quite that good?"

Rose snorted. "Try 18 minutes. And that's if you're lucky." She rolled her eyes. "It's a very good thing Jack doesn't know about this. Although, it might serve him right if you tried to demonstrate. I don't think many species could handle that sort of activity for prolonged lengths of time."

The Doctor slipped back down into the bed and snuggled back up against his Rose. "You know, it's not like we were doing a lot during most of it. The link sort of flared up and I think we sort of just...melded for a good long while." The Doctor could vaguely remember that, being buried inside her body and her mind, floating in Rose around Rose with Rose... He couldn't stop a deep purr from sounding and he let his tongue flicker out to catch the edge of her ear, coaxing an answering purr out of her. "Fancy another try? We should really compare results, techniques, gauge responses..." He nipped gently at her ear lobe and Rose sighed heavily.

"Doctor," she gasped and had to push him away to speak. "Your people couldn't have done this normally. I mean, to be out of touch for so long...wouldn't it be evolutionarily unwise? I mean, a predator could eat you or something while you're all...distracted."

He couldn't help the laugh that escaped him. "Rose, my people don't feel time like you do. Honestly, I once sat through a 6 day meeting where a bunch of Time Lords tried to figure out what to order for lunch. Spending 23 hours on sex isn't that hard to believe. Actually, I'd guess this was something rather close to what you'd call a quickie."

"A quickie." Rose's voice was full of disbelief. "Wait a minute, that little pill I took? Didn't it only last for a few hours or something?"

"Calm down." The Doctor smiled at her and rubbed her arm until she stopped glaring. "It doesn't work like human birth control. It forces your system into a kind of holding pattern not allowing conception. There's a chemical in...in my...that I release that kick starts you back into your normal pattern, only the hormones in the pill kept you in the holding pattern long enough to prevent conception. Theoretically you could take the pill one month and we could wait to have sex till the next one and you'd still be fine. But as soon as we do, you need to take another to be covered. Let's say, hypothetically, we made love, woke up, and wanted to start again..." Somehow, the Doctor managed to smirk despite his blush. "Even though you'd taken the pill less than 24 hours before you'd still need another one. I think, now mind you we should probably test this theory medically to be sure, but I think that it's only safe to stay in the holding pattern for a few years without coming out of it, but that you can probably take it as many times as you want so long as you are introduced to the chemical that restarts the process. Romana would normally only take one if we were planning a trip that would keep us in the Vortex for longer than a human month and when we landed she'd restart the cycle. There were little green pills in the bag with this one that contain the chemical – in case I'm not here to supply it for you the old fashioned way." His blush got worse, if that was possible. "The pill formula pre-dates time travel and it wasn't till Romana's time that they figured out this would help Time Ladies stuck in the Vortex. I'm not sure it was ever fully researched with modern methodology, at least not for what we are using it for, but I do know that was the original purpose."

Rose snorted and cuddled in even closer. "So, what's the chances of us getting pregnant without the pill or if it doesn't work?"

The Doctor caught her eye and held it. "You see, Rose, the reason it took 23 hours, the reason I was inside inside you..." He paused, a serous expression on his face. "Rose, my people _never_ had sex casually. Without that pill you would become pregnant. Every time."

Rose's brain was slightly overwhelmed, and the Doctor felt the link get a bit stronger as she processed this information. Glimpses of the book he'd given her flashing though her mind along with references to a "prong to insure conception".

"That would be the general idea, yes. Direct delivery and all that." He answered her silent question before she could ask it. "Granted, I'm new to this, but I also think that part is sort of a requirement for me to, ah, enjoy the experience to the conclusion. If I don't _extend_ I can't actually...release."

Rose couldn't help but laugh at that. "You mean for a male to enjoy sex on Gallifrey he had to get his lady pregnant? No wonder your people gave up sex. It took so long everyone knew what you were up to and every time you did it you ended up with another mouth to feed. Quirky biology, Doctor."

"I believe I told you the first trip in this ship, the universe is filled with diversity." He grinned at her. "Personally, I find it romantic. It means that we men have to care deeply before we put ourselves at risk from hypothetical predators." His eyes burned into hers, serious and more intense than she'd ever seen them. "We have to truly, deeply, love our ladies and they us to be willing to make such a commitment." He let the seriousness fade from his eyes as his natural playfulness returned. "Besides, we've a way around all that "mouths to feed" mess, and no one to notice if we disappear for a day or a week or maybe... longer." He purred the last part and Rose's eyes fluttered shut. "The TARDIS can handle the Vortex on her own. What do you say we get you another dose and find out exactly how long this should really take?"

Rose's purr caught in her throat and it took her moment to answer. "I wouldn't mind lingering here for a while..."

He smiled at her, his grin lighting up his entire face. "Rose Tyler, I wouldn't mind lingering here forever." The link didn't let either of them mistake the other's meaning. They were home.

...and the TARDIS let out her own silent purr.

/ / / / / / / / AUTHOR'S NOTE / / / / / / / / /

And so it ends. I want to thank everyone who's read and reviewed. Your support is always appreciated. On the upside, now I will be able to turn my Doctor attentions to my other unfinished fic in this genre. Check my author page if you are interested. It's far more AU then this one in terms of throw out everything past season two and don't even bother with pre-new series canon. I'm playing fast and lose and having a great ton of fun being all dark and hurt/comforty. Grin. I have a lot of intersting things planned for that one and a ton mroe plot than we had here.

Because I know someone is going to ask, no I am not planing a sequal to this.

And because the next question I usually get is "why not?" - Anwser is: I'm bored with this one. I only meant it to be the first chapter as a sad stand alone. But I couldn't leave it at that. So, you get this.

Lastly, in case you are wondering why I did weird alien sex rather than plain sex. He's alien. The best part of writing Who Smut is getting to write weird alien sex. It's also why like to write Trek Fic.

I hope everyone enjoyed and I will look forward to seeing you on the next one!


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